We had a shock start the next morning - we had opted for a fan room and not an expensive AC room with hot shower etc... They had kindly refrigerated our water, certainly woke us up. We had negotiated a good deal with Mr Ron for the Day and an English Speaking Guide to help up explore Angkor. Our guide Mr Saroeun gave us the low down of Angkor history on the way to the ruins. Angkor 'The Lost City' is ancient, built between the 9th and 13th century. All that is left of the city are the stone structures; the temples and the fortifications. The right to live in stone buildings was reserved for the gods so all the houses, public buildings and palaces were made of wood and have long since rotted away. We pulled off the road after 10 mins at a set of tollbooths where tourists buy their entrance passes. The Petroleum company Sokimex which owns Angkor Wat (only in Cambodia eh!) has set an extortionate entrance fee of $20 per day! Only very very little of the money goes back to study, maintenance or restoration of Angkor. As with most things in Cambodia, it's stupidly corrupt. Any restoration work at Angkor is only really done by international teams mainly from Japan and France, the Cambodian government has little interest. After we got our photo IDs we were asked to display them by Sokimex Security every time we stopped in Angkor and at a checkpoint on the way in, so there is no way to see Angkor without paying the fee. The road led us into thick jungle, and we began to see hints of the old city in glimpses of ruins in the jungle. Suddenly the Tuk Tuk turned onto a road running next to a moat covered with floating lotus flowers and on the far side a wall protecting more jungle inside. Our Mr Saroeun explained that Angkor Wat was located inside but was hidden by the wall and vegetation from our viewpoint but that we would see it later that day. Angkor Wat is the highlight of the Angkor ruins it is also the iconic symbol that appears on the national flag. We headed past the moat and back into the jungle for another 10 mins before our first stop. We were amazed at the number of ancient temples we passed on the way. We stopped outside the South entrance to Angkor Thom (Angkor fortified city). The Walled city is surrounded by a wide moat which also had water lilies and lotus flowers dotted across it. The entrance to the city was via a bridge lined with statues of Gods and Demons acting out a scene of tug of war with a snake. The monumental gatehouse topped by four serene faces of Avalokitesvara (serene Buddha), the whole affect of the moat, the bridge, the city wall and the gatehouse was stunning. After exploring the area for a bit we jumped back in the Tuk Tuk to see the main temple in the jungle covered 10sq km of Angkor Thom, The Bayon. This temple, from a distance, looks like a heap of rock with rough pillars jutting out but when you get up close there were loads of carvings in on the walls of the temple depicting the day to day living of Khmer people in the 12th century. All very interesting. After exploring this and a parade ground complex nearby we were hot and needed a rest so had a siesta before going to see Angkor Wat. This site really was amazing the masterpiece of the collection of 100 or so temples at Angkor. Again surrounded by a moat and a fortified wall once inside the Angkor Wat is fully visible at the end of a stone causeway through what once would have been gardens but now just grassed areas. A quote from our guide book "Angkor Wat, with it's soaring towers and extraordinary bas relief's, is considered by many to be one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind." Sounds over the top but gets the point across. Once we got inside the temple the detail and extent of the carvings were extraordinary. The carving of the Cambodian version of the Epic Ramayana stretched for 800 meters. Another on the other side of the temple showed the scene that we had seen on the bridge in the morning. Mr Sarouen our guide explained that this was 'The Churning of the Oceans of Milk" In the story of the quest for immortality, a kind of tug of war between the gods and the devils, each pulling the body of a serpent in different directions. The centre of the serpent is wound around a mountain in the sea, which churns the ocean during the give and take of the tug of war. From the churning of the ocean came the elixir of life. Other scenes carved into the temple walls showed daily events and imagined day-to-day events in 37 heavens and 32 hells. Hell looked was a bit graphic with all the punishments dealt according to sins committed in life, usually a lot of spikes burning and bashing, v nasty. Mr Sarouen seeing some monks chatting to a female tourist went off on a tangent here to get some things off his chest about how he felt about some of the younger monks and the way monasteries can be abused. He explained that the some (and only a few) of the younger monks who join monasteries can have a shady past. On joining you don't have to declare your past or name and are under the protection of the Monastery. Because of this misfits who have committed a crime in another region can escape to a distant monastery where they are an unknown and safe from persecution. This can cause some trouble for the reputation of the monasteries and has led to the arrest of monks in the Siem Reap area for crimes ranging from having a girlfriend to the rape and murder last year of a local schoolteacher. Hearing this was quite bizarre as with most holy people you hold the Buddhist monk in a high respected regard. He also explained that many of the monasteries around the town the monks no longer serve the local villages but come into town. The monks serve the villages by accepting donations of food and clothing from the villagers. The belief is that the food that the villager had donated would pass to his ancestors through the monk. The villagers see this as a requirement. The monks who can get donations of money from town no longer visit the villages for donations of rice. We enjoyed the day exploring Angkor so asked our guide to take us to some more sights the next day. So knackered after trekking around all day we headed home just as a storm hit and soaked the ruins.