Outlying Temple Adventure

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A huge thank-you goes to Villa Siem Reap for organising this tour of some of the harder to get to temples in the Angkor region. Today my group consisted of four of us, plus our tour guide (the same one I had for the stilted village tour) and our driver.

We visited some of the oldest temples in the region, some built prior to 900. The older temples were far less complex or mindblowing as the Angkor Vat and Angkor Thom group of temples but were still very impressive in their own right. The fact that they could build these monuments without machinery was an achievement.

The older temples are built using mostly brick and volcanic rock. There's no floor to ceiling carvings on the wall however the first temple we visited did have sculpting made from clay attached to the outer walls.

The main downfall of todays tour were the very insistent pushy kids selling. I understand that it is a way of life for them and they struggle for money, but it was very hard to get used to. Yesterday there wasn't any pushy kids at Angkor Vat or Angkor Thom, maybe I was lucky or maybe because they have a huge number of visitors at the two main complexes they didn't have to be pushy to make money. These temples were at times well off the beaten track.

My favourite temple of the day by far was Ta Prohm. Yes, this is the one from Tomb Raider but seriously, the film doesn't do it justice. It is an amazing sight to behold, this temple that was abandoned to the jungle and the jungle made it home. These huge trees have wrapped their roots around the building, one of which grows directly ontop of the building and although they have broken apart pieces, they also hold it together.

My second favourite temple of the day would have to be the Bantaey Srei. It's miniture in scale in comparison to Angkor Vat, Angkor Thom or even Ta Prohm but the level of sculpture on this building is amazing. - full scenes of Krishna above doorways telling Hindu stories. The temple is dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Rama (the three main Gods in Hindu) and it would have been amazing in it's day.

I finished the day with a Khmer massage at the Villa before meeting one of the people from the tour, Gem, out for dinner at Angkor Palm. It was the first time since I have been here that I did not eat at the Villa, and must say that Lonely Planet got it right when they selected Angkor Palm as their pick. We shared the Ankor Palm platter which featured seven different Khmer dishes. It was stunning food, each dish was well balanced and delicious, and at $14.00 for the two of us it was extremely good value.

After dinner we went for what should have been window shopping along the main roads of Siem Reap. Unfortunately my ability to window shop isn't very good, so I walked away with a pair of thai fisherman shorts, a tank top and a silver bracelet. The silver bracelet was the bargain, they wanted USD$60 at first but I got it for $15. The tank and fishermans shorts cost me $12 for the lot.

Yet another perfect day in Siem Reap and Cambodia.

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