We took a hired car from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap which is the city just outside Angkor Wat. We had a couple of days here to explore this amazing UNESCO world heritage site. It is such a vast complex spanning about 400 km2 and there are so many temples and ruins. Each one we visited had such detailed carvings on almost all the stones that it is a bit mind boggling to think of the amount of effort that went into building this city. It was built in the 12th century as the center of the Khmer empire. The first king to build was Hindu but later kings, feeling the Hindu gods had failed them, converted to Buddhism so the temples are a mix of both. The complexes were abandoned as a city in the 15th century due to invasions from other countries, primarily present day Thailand and due to intense flooding from a number of years in a row of heavy monsoons. The capital ended up shifting to Phnom Penh. A lot of the city and temples were lost to the jungles but local monks still maintained and worshipped in a few of the main temples even though the city was “lost”. Europeans “discovered” it in the late 1800s and it has been growing in popularity ever since.
Our hotel arranged a tuk tuk driver for us to take us to any of the ruins we wanted to go to. We liked him and hired him for the second day as well. It was a fun way to travel around the complex and he would drive us to the temple that we wanted to see and then wait for us. Most drivers had a hammock that they would hook up to relax in while they waited the 1-2 hours for you to visit a temple.
Angkor Wat
The whole complex is known as Angkor Wat but one of the most famous temples is also called Angkor Wat. Angkor means city and wat means temple which is an appropriate name for a city that is full of temples. This temple being the main one, is basically called temple of the city.
Most temples have guides sitting out front that you can hire to do a tour. We opted to try it for our first temple, even though we had arrived late in the afternoon and were running out of time. We decided that we were glad we had a guide for the first one, but if we did it for every temple we would hear a lot of the same general information and not be able to go at the pace we wanted.
A lot of the temple is covered walkways and courtyards (or pools) and most walkways had these carved pillars. Our guide explained that they were ancient A/C as the stones would cool over night and then as the wind blew through during the day, the pillars would cool the walkways. All the carvings increased the surface area to allow more air contact. It seemed to work as the walkways were cooler.
So many intricate carvings everywhere you looked.
Our guide liked to take fun pictures, and at the center of the walkways at the center of the temple was a rock on the floor oriented on the compass directions. Having us looking down, and bow in the traditional “hello” pose, he took this picture. We didn’t realize there was a matching stone above us so we didn’t quite get that lined up properly (mostly me) but here is our Hello to everyone from Angkor Wat!
A few more fun pictures from our guide.
Phnom Bakheng Temple
A few kilometers away from Angkor Wat temple is a small hill (in a mostly very flat area) that has the Phnom Bkheng temple on it and was recommended as a place to see the sunset. So we hustled there with a few minutes to spare.
There used to be this big long staircase that led up to the temple but with it being overgrown for a few centuries by the jungle, it wasn’t usable. So instead there was a path that led around the hill to reach the top. Along the way you could see down to this little tiny temple to the north side, and then when you round the west side, you got to see the West Baray (reservoir) with its temple in the lake. This kind of exemplifies Angkor Wat – so many small hidden buildings that probably don’t get many visitors, as well as showing its vast size. It is a bit mind blowing that that is a man-made lake cut out by hand about 900 years ago.
There was also a good view of the Angkor Wat temple once you got to the South side.
We found a place to watch the sunset before it got too crowded and Annika needed a bit of cooling off after the hike up!
Bayon Temple
The Bayon Temple sits at the center of another complex surrounded by a moat called Angkor Thom (great city) and was thought to be the royal city, making Bayon temple an important one. It is known for its many stone carved faces.
Even the bridge and the entrance gate were lined with stone faces; each one different.
After passing through the gate on our way to the temple in the center, our tuk tuk driver told us to keep our eyes open for monkeys as they were know to be in this area. They were pretty easy to find as minutes later they were running across the road!
A pretty impressive temple as well.
So many carved reliefs along all the walls that told so many different stories. Everything from battles, to how things were made, to everyday life things like fishing and childbirth. Throw in all the stories about their gods as well and there was just seemed like an endless carving around the whole temple.
Having a bit of fun of our own: nose to nose with a stone face.
Banteay Kdei Temple
Close to the Bayon Temple and in the same moat complex was the Baphuon Temple, known for its pyramid shape.
Banteay Kdei Temple
Our next temple stop was a bit further east and even just the drive there we passed many temples and even ancient long walls easily a couple of kilometers long.
Banteay Kdei Temple isn’t as popular as some of the other ones but is one that has a number of trees growing out of it and has more of the ruins type of feel to it.
Just outside of Banteay Kdei was the Srah Srang Baray which is one of the smaller ones.
Ta Prohm Temple
Our last stop was the Ta Prohm temple also known as the Tomb Raider temple, as it was used in and made famous by the 2001 movie. It was the most overgrown with large trees and ended up being our favourite one as it feels the most in the jungle.
The Tomb Raider tree.
At some of the temples there were little platforms like this that had traditional musicians that were all victims of the wars in Cambodia, most often landmines. It was heartbreaking to see and encouraging at the same time. We have been trying to get local music when we can since audio is good at triggering memories (thanks to a friend at home for that tip!), so it was fitting that this ended up being our CD to remember South East Asia by.
Our hotel in Siem Reap was just around the corner from the night market which we enjoyed one evening. Not nearly as busy as some other night markets we have been too.
A new street food discovery was rolled ice cream. We discovered that this was actually started in Thailand but was pretty famous in Siem Reap as well.