Cambodian Temples

We are in Siem Reap! Since there are so many photos from today, here are my favorite ones in the slideshow below. 

This morning we went to go see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We were out of the hotel at 5:30 and I was blown away by the crowded roads at this hour already. Outside on the dirt road, we walked to the main bridge entrance to Angkor Wat where our tickets were checked and we walked through the slowly lightening morning through the outer walls of Angkor Wat. We walked across the large inner field, past the library buildings, getting closer each step to the main towers. Our final destination was the corner of the main pond, where a bunch of other people were congregated. I walked alone with Dr. Sayarath to a nearby village where we heard morning music. It was tranquil, to say the least. We then headed back to eat breakfast at our embarrassingly nice hotel. 

Today we did the real-life temple run. Our first stop was Angkor Thom, where we were by 9:30 AM. Our bus took us to one of the five identical gates to the ancient city, and we walked across a bridge lined with statues to the narrow entrance that only medium sized buses could make it through. Phally gave us great history lessons in two spots before we moved on to a different set of buses that took us the rest of the way to the main Angkor Thom temple. The place is a great maze of passages, and it was pretty full of tourists The views were stunning and we had a great time exploring and posing for photos. We did a pretty good job at practicing group photos while in crowded spaces. Next we walked out the South gate and to a large plane walled in my large terraces. We saw the Elephant Terrace and the Leper Terrace, both of which were quite impressive. We then had some time to relax under a tree while our buses fought traffic to pick us up. Back on the buses we drove 10 minutes to Ta Prohm, the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed, home to a set of very large trees growing over large rocks. That was my favorite temple of all. I was impressed by how many temples we passed on the way to the larger ones... there must have been 5 or 6 small ones we didn't have time to explore. After Ta Prohm we went back to Angkor Wat to actually explore it since before we had just gone for the view in the morning. On the way we stopped at a restaurant where we were quickly served with several rounds of chicken and fish curry, several vegetable dishes, and some very tasty spring rolls. We spent over an hour eating, resting, and hydrating. With full energy, we headed to the touchstone of all temples in the region. Ankor Wat is HUGE. I still don't understand how it was constructed without any tools... Climbing a set of stairs brought us to the open ringed area of the second level, where we saw four gigantic pools. Then we continued on to the third level with a fantastic view of everything below. It was all very impressive.