Ancient Wonders of Angkor Wat

---

---

Brave people will hire a bike to see the temples, Siem Reap’s main attraction. We are not so brave, being brand new and like marshmallows, we haven’t adjusted to the heat yet. We hired a tuk tuk instead, which is another popular way to do it. A tuk tuk driver is around $15/day with an extra $3 if you want to see the sunrise. Tour buses and hired cars are also available.

Tickets to the temples come in three different forms – you can get a one day pass for $20, a 3 day pass (valid for a week) for $40, and a 7 day pass (I think valid for 7 consecutive days) for $60. We went for the 3 day pass. They take a photo of you when you buy the ticket, and the lady at the office asked if I was Cambodian (or part Cambodian). Cambodians get in for free but I’m too honest to lie so I said I wasn’t, but that my mum is from Malaysia.

I’m sure it’s possible to negotiate your own route with your driver if you want, but most will offer two different routes, which you take over two days. The ‘Short Circuit’, which actually takes longer but covers less distance, takes you to the legendary Angkor Wat, and the other more famous temples (think Tomb Raider). The ‘Grand Tour’ takes you around about 7 other temples that haven’t been in famous movies but still manage to be pretty impressive. We did the short circuit then the grand tour, but in my opinion it’s actually better to do the grand tour first as once you’ve seen Angkor Wat, everything else pales a little in comparison.

It’s not that interesting to read a step-by-step “we saw this temple, then we saw this temple, then we saw this temple”, so I’m just gonna list some highlights and let the pictures speak for themselves.

A lot of the temples were built by this one king, Jayavarman VII, who must have just woken up about every few weeks and thought “You know what we should build? Another temple!” He also built the massive city of Angkor Thom and a lot of other useful buildings like hospitals and reservoirs. Sounds like a pretty decent guy.

Angkor Wat is definitely the most impressive. It was built by Suryavarman II before Jayavarman VII was King, otherwise he would probably have built it too, in his spare time. We took in the sunrise here, heavily touristed of course but this is for good reason – it’s epic. We had drifted away from the crowds by the time the sun was actually visible in the sky, and it was this massive bright red orb just hanging over the top of Angkor Wat – one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. There are a couple of buildings off to the side of the main walkway, and most people were gathered by one of the pools, leaving these buildings mostly deserted – an awesome and peaceful way for us to see the sun rise. Added bonus – watching a tourist take close up photos of grass as the sun was rising behind her.

And the inside is filled with elaborate murals, passageways and stairs. As expected there were hundreds of tourists – it’s just one of those places, it’s touristy for a reason and we didn’t let the number of people put us off. Walking behind the temple to the eastern gate there were a group of monkeys.

Some people were feeding them sweets (not highly recommended). This resulted in a showdown between the monkeys and a stray dog over a sweet – we kept our distance.

A lot of the temples are built with a tiered kind of structure, which means (if you’re up for it) you can climb up the often very steep stairs to the top and look out over the landscape. There are some epic views from the top. I think my favourite thing about the temples was imagining what they would have looked like in their heyday. A lot of the stones have holes bored in to them, which indicates that they had either plaster or even bronze plating attached to them, so when they were built they could have been quite colourful. One of the temples, Pre Rup, still has remains of the plaster on some of the doorways.

There has been some really extensive restoration work done on the temples – each temple has a sign outside with before and after photos, a number of sites have been restored just from piles of rubble which you really wouldn’t have thought by looking at them today.

Since we started so early on the second day, and most tour groups go back into town for breakfast, we had a little time to explore almost by ourselves. The light here is really soft and hazy anyway but just after sunrise and before it gets hot there is a really serene and peaceful atmosphere.

After two days of exploring in the heat we were exhausted, but in awe of the massive engineering and architectural feats that were undertaken by the ancient Khmer empire.

Follow us on our blog & Facebook page 😊

Website Blog

Facebook Page

---