Temples of Angkor

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor
July 25th 2015

Published: August 1st 2015

Edit Blog Post

SE Asia with Youngsters

Driving in Angkor

Where to begin with the Temples of Angkor. It's the worlds largest religious complex. It's just possible to see most of the important and famous temples in 2 days. We were given loads of advice not to see the best first so we opted for a gradual build up to what we all were there to see Angkor Wat.

It is really difficult to describe the grandeur and wonder, the different details and elements. This place is vast, ancient and spiritually significant not to mention just beautiful. We will do our best with photos and words to capture just a little, without giving you temple fatigue.

Day 1 we decided to do the outer ring of temples first much to our tuk tuk drivers dismay. He said "you're doing it wrong, Angkor Wat first". There is no way of getting to the outer temples with out driving past Angkor Wat so we had a cheeky glimpse on the way past.

First stop Angkor Thom. It's the gates that grab your attention instantly. My first thoughts were, this is grander than Angkor Wat. Flanked on each side of the bridge were beautify carved gods and daemons in a tug

Angkor roads

of war match holding an enormous snake. Then to the gate, it towers over you intimidatingly with massive carved heads and elephants. Amazingly we turned up and no one was around so we took some quick photos before heading to Preah Khan our first temple stop.

Preah khan is designed to be entered from the east, but the convenient drop off point is on the western side, so we slipped in the back door as such. It is beautifully carved dark corridors through light rooms that span in all directions giving the impression of reflections as your eyes try to make sense of the endless light and dark stone frames.

Next was Preah Neak Poan. Set deep in to a lake surrounding symmetrically by four pools. A big long board walk has been constructed to get out to it from the main road (Agus even wanted to be off my shoulders for the walk). You're conveniently syphoned past and through stores desperately trying to sell you trinkets. My favourite description of the pools is this. "If Vegas ever adopts the Angkor theme, this will be the swimming pool".

The next few temples were kinda same but different.