Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Today was another day I've been planning for a long time - Angkor Wat! As we got our ticket yesterday we headed straight into the complex and for Angkor Wat. Our drivers dropped us off and we walked along the 1km walkway that takes you to the heart of the temple, we stepped to the side by one of the ponds (which was surrounded by people, but still got a nice spot) and waited for the sun to rise - the temples make an incredible silhouette as the sun rises over them with the colour of the skies reflecting off the ponds! An incredible experience that was well worth the early start! After the sun had risen we headed inside the temple and had a little wander, appreciating the carved detail and murals that covered the walls! Our next stop was Angkor Thom and it's temple 'Bayon' - we started with Bayon which is the temple which is covered in large statue faces (it has over 200 facing in every direction). This was an incredible building to walk around and the faces were awsome to see. We then headed towards the north gate and around the palace that's there, this was also really good to see as there are a set of small temples opposite as well. We met our driver here and headed to Phnom Khan - this is a small temple that is only partially reconstructed and because of that it was really interesting to walk around. It actually wasn't as small as we thought It was going to be so we only walked around a part of it, it was good to see the mix of what it should be like and what it is like now! Our final stop was Ta Prohm, this is where they filmed a part of the Tomb Raider film and was the smallest of all the temples. This one was interesting as again it's only partially reconstructed but it also has trees growing around and over the ruins - a few photos and a sit down and we headed back to the tuk tuk. When Pat and Jan arrived back we thought we would head to the floating village (this is where things went slightly wrong) so we asked if they would do this as we hadn't used a whole day and had paid a lot for the day! They agreed and told us the boat to the floating village would be $20 a the village is located 15km out the other side of Siem reap and is an amazing drive. We drove through a shanty village that is in stilts above the river with a floating school and medical centre, you also pass a lot of really green agricultural land that reminded us of a flat devon! However when we got there the boat was actually $20 each, so we said we didn't want to pay as we were told wrong and one our drivers kicked off as we made him drive out tree and didn't pay him more to do so, all was fine in the end as we all still got our tuk tuks back to the guesthouse! Tonight we went out to a small restraunt called 'butterflies' which is completely covered with net and has a beautiful harder full of butterflies! We had some good food and a few drinks and we headed back for an early night!
- comments