What wat is this wat?

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More Wats. Our third day at Angkor, and finally we went to Angkor Wat. We got up early and headed off with hundreds (thousands??) of other people, mainly Japanese and Korean tourists, to see sunrise. Bit of a disappointment though. Angkor Wat was impressive, but the sunrise was a bit pathetic!

Colin stayed outside the wat while I went inside so we could get two different views of the sunrise. So I got lumbered with the crowds, but still managed to find myself a decent enough place to wait. After sunrise we wandered round the outer galleries looking at the major bas reliefs / murals showing religious historical events, impressive. By this time, most of the people had headed off elsewhere so we could get into the temple and look around easier. This is a hard place to come and avoid the crowds! The top level of the temple was blocked off so we couldnt climb right to the top (avoided more of those nasty steps though! They are that steep as getting up to the gods wasnt meant to be easy). We spent 2-3 hours wandering around, or just sitting and contemplating life.

From Angkor Wat we took a tuk tuk out of Siem Reap to another small group of temples called the Rolous Group, named after a nearby village. We werent expecting to be the only people there (we hadnt met anyone that had been out there) but we certainly werent expecting to see bus loads of tourists there - all those Koreans and Japanese we'd met earlier! It kind of took the shine off these temples, having hoards of people swarming over them, especially Bakong, rising out of the jungle a bit pyramid like, would have been really impressive early morning or late afternoon...maybe a bit of mist...a couple of monks walking through...oh well.

This was our last experience of temples here at Angkor. In some ways too many in three days. We needed a bit more time, a week pass, seeing some temples one day, something else the next and so on. Too many temples and they lose their impressiveness. Siem Reap doesnt have the infrastructure or other attractions to make it a place to stay for too long though. Its still a small town struggling to cope with the thousands of visitors making their way to the temples of Angkor.

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Comments

[liliram]

love the title of this blog
Am reading up on blogs about Cambodia, to prep for a trip sometime next year. I love the title of your blog, and I think I have the next few days busy reading up on the rest of your blogs on Cambodia. thanks for sharing!

[thetravelbugtribe]

feel free to get in touch if you have any questions, we'll try and help out. We had a great time in Cambodia - saw heaps, but there is so much else we didnt have time for.