Wat an experience
We spent four days in Siem Reap; three of which were occupied by the glorious Angkor area temples (Angkor Wat). Really, Angkor Wat is just one of the hundreds of temples in that area, but it is the one everyone knows. Wow. They certainly live up to the hype. There are so many of them and they are so intricate that the first European explorers to find them didn’t think the Khmers had the capability to make them so they attributed them to the Romans. It is difficult to describe how amazing they are. I took 300 pictures.
the first day we hired a tuk tuk and went to the outer temples. Bantay Serei I think it was called. It is the best preserved of all the temples and the detail of the stone work was neat. It helped us imagine what all the tempels must have looked like in their prime. Many of the temples started as Hindu temples, but later became Buddist temples so you seem alot of imagery from both religions.
On the second day we hired another tuk tuk to take us around Angkor Tom; which was the royal city for some king after Angkor Wat got sacked. It was spectacular. My favorite temple was almost totally taken by the jungle before the Khmer government opened it for tourism. Huge trees grew around and on top of some of the temples. There were moss covered piles of rubbles and all the temples were in various states of disrepair. That one really gave a sense for how old they were and how easy they could be to loose for so long.
On the third day we went to the actual Angkor Wat temple. It is very big and very impressive. I liked the Angkor Tom area better, but this was cool too. Unlike the other temples this one was never abandon. Buddist monks kept the forest at bay and made some repairs over the centuries. At the time of its ‘discovery’ there were over 1000 monks living near by and actively worshipping in the temple. Again words cannot describe what it was like so google some pictures.
Tags: Travel
