10/10: Angkor Wat at long last!

As I mentioned in some earlier posts, Steven has been waiting for more than 40 years to come to Siem Reap so he could visit Angkor Wat so it was a thrill to finally discover the many, many temples that comprise "Angkor Wat. (AW)" We had both thought, before doing some research, that AW was one of just a few temples rather than a massive complex of temples spread over a large geographical area.

Most people visiting Siem Reap (SR) normally stay for 2 or 3 days and spend their entire time seeing the temples very close to the town itself. We had originally planned to stay for 6 nights but quickly added a 7th night and shorten our stay in Kampot by one night in southern Cambodia at the end of the trip. We figured we probably wouldn't be back here in SR so wanted to see all the temples or wats we could on this trip. That meant our being lucky enough to tour the temples both 31 kms NE of SR as well as those 55 kms SE of town.

We hired Mr. Rada as our tuk tuk driver to take us on the "Little Circuit" tour of some of the temples close to SR; he was one of many tuk tuk drivers hired by the Tanei Guesthouse where we stayed, to be the hotel's overnight security guard as well as available to be a tuk tuk driver for the guests. The set price for the Little Circuit temples was $20 for the day, not including his meal and tip; a percentage of this would have to be given to the hotel. The cost was for the drive to see all the temples in the Little Circuit regardless of the time we wanted to spend seeing them. There were an overwhelming number of tuk tuk drivers in SR; by affiliating with a hotel, the drivers stand a better chance of being hired compared to trying to pick up fares on the streets of SR.

Our first view of Angkor Wat itself! We paid $60 each for a one week laminated pass with our photo on them to almost all the temples in and around SR.

My first elephant crossing sign.

The entrance by the South Gate of Angkor Thom above and the next four photos. Having our own driver meant that we were able to have him stop as often as we wanted to see something that interested us or just to take a photo. Angkor Thom is 10 sq kms in size; at its height, the city boasted a population of 1 million compared to London's population of only 50,000 at the same time.

There are 54 statues of gods one side of the causeway as you enter the gate and likewise, 54 statues of demons on the other side of the causeway. Not sure which were which though!

The south gate is one of 5 20m high gates in the "city" of Angkor Thom.

After passing through the gate, I loved seeing this boy on his cell phone while riding his elephant!

Saw many schoolchildren riding huge bikes like this in their uniforms.

I had never seen monkeys before outside of a zoo.

It was soon apparent how many countries have "adopted" many of the temples around SR.

There are also extraordinary bas-reliefs which incorporate more than 11,000 figures.

Bayon is very famous for its carvings of faces; there are 216 enormous carvings of the same face in/on Bayon. We visited it again another day so there'll be more pictures to come.

Baphoun: "called by some as the world's largest jigsaw puzzle b/c it was painstakingly taken apart piece by piece by a team of archaeologists before Cambodia's civil war; the records though were then destroyed during the Khmer Rouge madness and it was reopened only in 2008."

This little boy was asleep just a few feet away from the Buddha statue below.

Terrace of the Leper King

The man was using a scythe to cut the grass.

Another of Ankgor Thom's gates.

You see almost exclusively on the roads in the temple areas tuk tuks and not cars.

Each block is marked showing where it needs to be placed.

If you've seen ANY photos of the temples at Angkor Wat, there probably those from Ta Prohm. The temple was built in the 12th century and "reminds us equally of the awesome fecundity and power of the jungle. Its crumbling towers and towers are locked in the muscular embrace of centuries old trees." The Indiana Jones movies "Tomb Raider" and "Two Brothers" were filmed at Ta Prohm.