Angkor Thom - cycling and walking the walls

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Today we decided to cycle to Angkor Thom and do the Lonely Planets ‘off the beaten track’ trek around the old city. This is slightly crazy given it’s a 12km cycle to the start of the walk and the bikes provided by our hotel are somewhat dubious & extremely uncomfortable fixed wheel bikes. I’d love to be able to say we were trying to save the environment or improve our fitness but mostly they were appealing as they’re free with our hotel room.

We started out as early as we could (the bikes seem to be kept at someone’s house and they wouldn’t agree to bring the bikes to the hotel before 730am). At this time it’s hot but not too hot. There was plenty of shade along the route into Angkor and a cooling breeze. The whole area is incredibly flat so it was a very easy cycle.

Once we had arrived at the South Gate of Angkor Thom we tied up our bikes and climbed up onto the wall.
There are signs either side of the gate saying ‘no entry’ - this is just for the bit through the gate itself. The wall is still quite accessible (we saw multiple locals on their motorbikes on it) and the security guard right next to us didn’t mind us going up at all.

The Lonely Planet recommends walking East along the wall. This works well as the sun is then behind you and most of the walk is in the shade. After about 1500m you come across a small temple, Prasat Chrung, one of 4 identical temples on the 4 corners of the wall. From here we could see some locals fishing on the lily covered moat.
We then carried on our walk a further 1500m to the West gate.
On the way part of the wall had collapsed, and whilst there’s a well worn (motorbike) track around it we enjoyed scrambling up and down pretending we were intrepid explorers. You could easily cycle this route if you preferred.

The West gate is very quiet compared to the South Gate. The South Gate is in slightly better condition and has a beautiful bridge over the moat, lined by men holding a giant Naga (snake). The West gates bridge has mostly fallen and its just a sandy road crossing. This meant that we could enjoy admiring the gate and walls in relative peace and quiet.
Descending off the wall we headed towards the centre of Angkor Thom.

Just before we reached Bayon, the temple in the centre of Angkor Thom, we veered off North to Baphuon. This 11th century, Brahmanic (Shiva) temple consists of 5 tiers and is the first example of concentric stone galleries surrounding a central tower in Angkor.
To get to the temple you have to cross an impressive causeway through a couple of ruined temples. All around the temple complex you can see stones used to build the temple - in the 1940s part of it was dismantled and meticulous records were kept re how to reassemble the structure. Unfortunately these records were burnt during the Khmer Rouge era and so now they have a lot of numbered stones and no way of knowing how they’re supposed to fit together!
The stairs between each tier of the temple are incredibly steep. There are covered galleries on tiers 1, 3 and 5. Many of these have spectacular carvings of images from Hindu mythology (you just need to look behind some of the walls to see them).

From Baphuon we headed into the Royal enclosure, where the walls, pools and Phimianikas temple are present. Unfortunately you can no longer climb up the temple but it’s still interesting to wonder around the area, imagining what it would have been like when filled with the wooden Royal palaces.
Hot, tired & thirsty we were pleased to see some stalls selling food with seated areas just outside the enclosure and stopped for our lunch (unsurprisingly food is expensive inside Angkor).

After lunch we walked past the large 15th century sitting Buddha, Tep Pranam, and down a jungle path to the 12th century, Buddhist, Prah Pallilay. This somewhat ruined temple had a central tower sitting on a mound of earth and is surrounded by huge trees. There’s a later addition of a sitting and standing Buddha at the front of the temple complex and remarkably in tact Naga bulastrades.

Last stop of the day for us was the terrace of the Leper King and the Elephant Terrace. These terraces are adjacent to each other and look out over the cleared Royal square. They are where people used to sit and watch processions from.
The terrace of the Leper King is named after a statue on top of the terrace, of a nude king. The walls surrounding this terrace are beautifully carved with a repeating pattern of Naga (the snake), men and women. This pattern is matched in the carvings in its internal corridors.
The elephant terrace is longer and, unsurprisingly, decorated with images of elephants.

From the terraces we walked back to our bicycles, just under 2km away and cycled the 12km back to our hotel. Following a much needed cold shower we treated ourselves to a well earnt ice cream and sit down.

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Photos

Temple on the city walls
The South East corner

Baphuon
Looking down at the causeway from the upper tier