Day 71 - the ruins of Angkor

Leaving Lukas behind in few days ago in the east of Cambodia to add to his child photography collection, Petr and I continued ahead, travelling on buses for 2 days, getting clear across the country to start our planned 3-day tour of the legendary ruins of Angkor, the remnants of the Khmer empire that spanned 600 years and dominated S.E. Aisa since the 9th century. Lukas wasn't keen to see them anyway, so we didn't feel too bad about leaving him behind... That was until he was further delayed by some dodgy pineapple that didn't agree with him, making a bus journey to catch up as planned the following day not possible.

You buy a 1, 3 or 7 day pass for the ruins. We thought 3 should be enough, and so set off on day one with our tuktuk (small motorbike powered cart found everywhere throughout S.E. Asia) driver Rich – who was a very pleasant chap indeed. Day one started late morning with the biggest and most well-known of all the temples – Angkor Wat – the temple outline that features on the Cambodian national flag. I could go on forever about the details of each temple we visited (20 in all), but am sure I'd bore you all to death, so will list the main ones, and give you a picture-fest below :)

Angkor Wat really is rather large and impressive – built in the early 12th century for King Suryavarman II . Surrounded by a giant moat and protected by enormous walls, the inner courtyard leading up to the main temple stretches for hundreds of metres. Once we reached the main complex it took us 3 hours to fully explore it. It's the most intact of all the temples and is by far the most popular one to visit.

The view from the opposite/east end of the temple

A stitched together panoramic shot from inside the inner courtyard – impossible to fit it all in a single shot! Huge! Picture doesn't do it justice.

After that bombshell, we moved swiftly on to Angkor Thom – a series of temple complexes housed within a giant outer wall with impressive entrance gates depicting giant warriors handling mythical multi-headed serpents. Inside we viewed another 4 temples; The Bayon, Terrace of Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King and The Baphoun. One of which was being restored by the occupying French in the 40's – a giant jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces, carefully dismantled, catalogued and restored. In the process of the French relinquishing control of the area, all the plans were lost, leaving this unsolvable puzzle spread across acres of surrounding forest land. Only now with the advent of computers can they scan each piece and find it's most likely location in the temple. It'll be decades till they finish!

Bayon was one of my favourites – the centre of the old capital, it really seemed like a city with corridors & usable rooms, not just a giant shrine – loads to explore :)

One of the temples within (I forget which one – might be Phinmeanakas?). This one more of a layered pyramid style construction with damn steep slope - Petr there scaling the side.

After leaving the complex we ventured into a nearby collection of more Romanesque style ruins with column supported roofs and large stone doorways. Each temple is restored with the collaboration of another nation – presumably for each nation to cash in on the huge business of millions of tourists a year coming to see these ruins, and each shelling out a hefty entrance fee.

Thommanon temple ruins, restored in collaboration with Japan I think... could have been Switzerland?

Directly opposite was a temple called Chau Say Tevoda. This one restored in collaboration with China – not such a good quality job done here, but still, better than a pile of rubble I guess.

We continued to be driven around by Rich in our tuktuk, visiting more and more temples. By the end of the day we'd seen 8, and had a sunset view planned for dusk.

Ta Nei – the tallest (after Angkor Wat – whose tallest points were closed for restoration) we'd climb, took some doing by this point, but the view was well worth it.

We finished with a jungle temple – another sprawling complex , this time encased in wildlife, with giant tree roots slowly pulling apart the immense brickwork over hundreds of years.

At sunset we grabbed a few beers and climbed with a flood of other tourists to the top of a hill to another temple at the peak that gave an outstanding panorama of the surrounding area. We sat with the crowds to watch the sun set just off the horizon in a shroud of haze, before the mad dash back down to the hill to get to your driver and avoid the inevitable traffic chaos.

Sunset at Phnom Bakheng on the hill, with at least a thousand other people.

Day 2 we were pretty knackered, and so started a little later, but we still had a lot to cover. Less descriptive detail and more pictures now...

Banteay and it's confusing layout that left your head spinning.

Pre rup – another whopper to climb, this image taken from the second-tear, looking up at the top.

East Mebon was another set of ruins taken over by the jungle. Here we could see the infamous image of the gateway and budda face behind encased in a tree almost as ancient as the building itself. Stunning!

Preah Neak was a water-temple, that in the wet-season is filled to create islands and public baths that leach into one another, and into a surrounding moat.

Preah Kan was the last of day 2, and very impressive to explore – again more jungle encroachment throughout, and more Romanesque features.

Another image from Preah Kan – showing the multiple floor column layouts that seem more similar to ancient ruins found in Europe. These being constructed likely had some influence from the west by this point.

Day 3, and Lukas made it into town, and joined us. We saved the sunrise day just for him, as we knew he'd like the light condition's for photography and it's another opportunity to see Angkor Wat – the largest, that he'd missed previously on our first day. A ridiculously early rise, and run to the back for what turned out to be a bit of a disappointing dawn – too much haze.

Leaving only the west-side silhouette image the only real winner.

The rest of day 3 was overall less impressive. We done all the large temples, leaving only the far flung smaller ones to explore for the rest of the morning. The distances we had to cover in the tuktuk (not the most comfortable of vehicles) were greater, and the reward less. To add to this our tiredness levels after two full days of walking and climbing in near 40 degree dry temperatures and getting up at 4:30 that morning – we were glad that they took less time to explore, and longed for our hotel, some lunch and a well-deserved beer.

Banteay Srei – a pocket-sized baby temple, but the most impressive of the day.

And so 3 days, 20 temples, a lot of walking, heaps of climbing, and many litres of water drank that evaporated right back out of us... later, we're now ready to leave this corner of the country to head back to the Capital Phnom Penh tomorrow. There we want one full day to explore, before making our plans to head down to the coast for the relaxing part of our travels – maybe an island...?

Until next time.