Siem Reap - what I've done and advise you to do (2) Temples of Angkor

Angkor Wat... It does ring a bell, right? It's a huge religious temple. Cambodia. Okay.

I think so far most Europeans come, when they hear about Angkor. But what is there about this place which sounds so exotic and yet so unknown? Before considering to travel Southeast Asia, I barely knew about the Angkor Temples, not even to mention its background and history. I was completely amazed after me and Mallaury informed ourselves about our travel destination.

So lets start by some facts, before I start with our day tour through the "city of Angkor".

The famous Angkor Wat is just the main temple and a small part of a huge complex of ancient, religious buildings and temples. All that is situated in the middle of the jungle around 8km north of Siem Reap. Around the 12th Century, ''Angkor" was a densely populated city with one million inhabitants, way before Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok were on the map, making it the first Southeast Asian metropolis.

It was the political, social and religious center of the ancient Khmer Empire but was completely abandoned after its fall. The public buildings and houses of the citizens were all made out of wood, which is why nowadays just the "palaces of God" out of stone, can be visited.

As we wander around the streets of Siem Reap, we get to know a tuk tuk driver who seems nice and less obtrusive than the others. After chatting about our travel and the real situation in Cambodia, he proposed to give us a tour around the Angkor Complex for 12$. We accepted to meet him a few days later early in the morning.

On a sunny and very hot morning, we are leaving the town towards Angkor where we stop at the Angkor ticket office. The stiff price of 20$ per person for a daily ticket adds up to the humid heat and our tiredness, so we have a difficult start into the day.

We are leaving the ticket booth in a little bit of a bad temper and ride on a long straight road through nature, to finally arrive at our first tour stop, which is surrounded by a huge ditch filled with water and with that stands majestic on a man-made island...

...Angkor Wat

Our tuk tuk driver leaves us out at the front of Angkor Wat and we make our way through stalls and vendors over the bridge to the entrance of the temple. When we go through the walls and face the temple for the first time, we are definitely experiencing the "wow effect". Our tiredness (it's still 8 in the morning) and our bad temper gets blown away for the feeling of complete marvel. We find ourselves standing in front of the largest religious building of the world. It's the national symbol of Cambodia, pictured on the flag and with that the centre of their culture and national pride. Once inside the temple, we are looking up to the architecture and the details given to every single stone. It is incredible. Angkor Wat was built by Suryavarman II, who was of Hindu faith, to what he devoted the temple.

After a walk around the ground level, we take the adventurous steep stairs to the main tower, from where we are enjoying a stunning view over the moat, the surrounding jungle and all the tourists walking towards the Wat. The main tower is relatively calm with few tourists around. I think about how, when and with which means the temple was built. Just the very thought about it, is mind-blowing. ''

Speechless of what we see and because of the rising heat, we leave the temple. After finding our driver within dozens of waiting tuk tuks we continue to, how I would say, the weirdest temple...

...Angkor Thom - Bayon

The first thing we see arriving at this temple, which is about 1km away from Angkor Wat, are huge elephants. Apparently, there are guided elephant tours to show you around Angkor Thom. It is not the most convenient and animal friendly way to explore the are (https://ridebikesnotelephants.net/), but anyway it's pretty impressive to see these giants passing you on the road, as it would be the most normal thing in the world.

We enter Bayon and the scenery around us seems surreal, as there are over 200 enormous stone faces smiling down at us. Built in the late 12th century to show people the religious and regal power of this vast empire. Finding our way through small and hidden corridors, we are enjoying this trippy kind of a temple.

We exit Bayon on a side entrance and are supposed to pass another buddhist temple and meet our driver at the road. But actually, we don't come so far. On our way, we see big groups of monkeys, in and around a water puddle. After more than 2 hours of "temple hiking" in the blazing midday heat of Cambodia, these funny animals are the perfect relief. As soon as both parties (us and the monkeys) loose their fear of contact we play and fool around. Here, they are even less afraid of humans than in the temple in Sihanoukville, so we have our fun when some of them jump on my back and head, to steal something out of our backpack.

After this well appreciated diversion we cross the next sight called "Baphuon temple". Not much to say about it, except that it's another fascinating temple with an imposing entrance bridge.

The cloack reaches 1pm and as it feels like we are in a tropical green house with constantly over 35 C' and 95% percent humidity, we make our way through the junge towards our meeting point. We are hungry, thirsty, hot and need a break. So our driver brings us to "Sra Srang". This is supposed to be a huge manmade pool filled with water, where the King used to take his bath. Unfortuanetely, when we arrive, it's empty since Cambodia suffers from a heavy and long lasting drought this year.

Starving, we are happy to finally eat, but seeing the overpriced menu of the first restaurant, we search for something cheaper. Which turns out to be impossible.

Now, almost starving to death, we choose a restaurant, where I take the local specialty Amok (previous post) for stiff 10$. At least, we are enjoying the most expensive meal of our trip, in an air conditioned room.

Back outside in the heat, we head to the "jungle temple" or by the real name...

...Ta Phrom

This Buddhist temple, located really in the middle of the jungle, gives you the feeling of being in an Indiana Jones movie or being on the planet of Chewbacca (Star Wars 3). It's the perfect example of humans trying to oppress nature and nature conquers it back.

When we wander around the old, broken, mysterious site, we feel like adventurous discoverers who just found and are exploring an ancient site.

After being back with our driver, he brings us to the last stop of the day. Unfortunately, it's too hot, we are exhausted, tired and barely can stand on our feet, so we don't even know the name of the temple anymore. We walk through the wat, which after a full day in Angkor looks like any other.

We trudge a long long way (at least it feels like it) back to our tuk tuk.

Heading back to town, we are practically dead. So, what can be a better place to converse about the tour and remind everything, we've seen on this magic, never to be forgotten, day... ?