The Temples of Angkor Wot

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July 27th 2008

Published: July 27th 2008

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Dexta

Bayon

we spent a couple of days here, the main purpose was obviously to see the temples, for those who dont know they are one of the wonders of the world and also where the film Tombraider was set.
me and the boys hired a tuk tuk for the day for $10, i dont know anyone else who got it this cheap but the Isrealy boys i was travelling with (especially Chen) never payed full price for anything, in fact they never payed as much as anyone else we ever met for anything we ever payed for, which i was more than happy about as i had much less patience than them when it came to haggling. the day started off well except for the fact that we had planned to get up at 4.30am to get there fore the sunrise, however that didnt happen and we will never know if the tuk tuk driver we hired initially was waiting outside or not, but after less than 3 hours sleep we were a little over optomistic. we strolled through through Angkor Wot (the centre piece of Cambodia's flag) and then onto Bayon (the one with all the faces engraved in it) another

sunset over siem reap

lesser known temple and then the heavens opened! we waited for an hour or so until it stopped, driving up and down in the tuk tuk lookin for Chen who dissapeared after a trip to the bathroom. he finally showed up and we went to Ta Phrom (set of Tombraider) and wandered around the ruined temple that had trees growing into the brick work merging jungle and stone into one, before deciding it was too wet to carry on. we drove past a couple more and took pictures from outside but were happy with the fact that we had at least covered the main temples.
Angkor Wot was huge and gives a good idea of the size and power of the former Khmer empire but Bayon was most visually impressive with strange carved faces that looked back at you everywhere u walked. Siem Riep itself was a dusty liitle town that has been built on tourism so dont go expecting to find real Cambodian life, 24hour mini marts and western bars are what u will find, which dont get me wrong, i did make the most of, more so the mini market for a large tub of ice cream at