Second Day in Angkor

This morning started early again. We were out of the hotel by 5.30am and on our way to Ta Phrom via tuk-tuk for the sunrise. We stopped first at an ancient reservoir to watch the sun come up before making our way to the temple. When we arrived, we were the only ones there. Our guide, Mr. Aun, took us through the entrance to the temple and already we could see it was magnificent!

We spent over an hour wandering through the ruined temple and we were amazed by the trees  that had reclaimed the buildings. It was so beautiful. The temple was surrounded by huge silk cotttonwood trees which really added to the atmosphere of the jungle temple. Mr Aun finally managed to tear us away from the temple and we headed back to the hotel via tuk-tuk for breakfast at the hotel.

We had an hour and a half to enjoy breakfast before we headed out again. This time we drove to Ankgor Wat itself. We walked in through the east entrance and followed the walkway up to the temple. Aun talked to us about the various Bas Relief carvings on the walls of the temple. One whole wall was depicting the judgment of humans decide whether they go to heaven or hell. The wall was divided into two halves. The bottom half showed the torture in hell and the top half showed the good things about heaven. In the middle was the God who made judgment on people. From their they either fell down into hell or walked up the ramp to heaven.

There were a lot of tour groups walking around but we managed to skirt past them in most places. Apparently they had just opened the top of the temple (in the past 2 years) so that people could climb up but they only let 100 people up at a time. The line was so long and it was hot so we didn't bother waiting. We walked around the different areas of the temple and tried to stay out of the sun. On the western side, the King's entrance, you could still see some of the original paint - red and yellow. The temple would have been beautiful in its original painted condition.

Just inside the western entrance were carvings of well endowed women. Their boobs were dark and shiny where thousands of people over the years had rubbed them! Apparently a lot of people have asked Aun why these figures have such large breasts when Cambodian women of today have small ones! Aun thought it was to entice people to come and worship :-)

We walked out of the Western entrance and along the King's way before meeting up with the van again. Next on the agenda was the Angkor Thom complex - an ancient walled city. As we walked through the east gate we passed over the Naga bridge with evil spirits on the right and good spirits on the left before passing under the first bridge with the characteristic faces of Angkor Thom carved into it.

We walked on to Bayon temple with the many faces. Again, it was beautiful. In some places you could see three faces in a line. Some were smiling with their eyes open and some had their eyes closed. We wandered around and sat in the cool to just simply observe the tranquil temple. The bas-relief carvings were also very detailed depicting the war between Khmer soldiers and Muslim infiltrators.

Once we had finished at Bayon, we had a look at the Terrace of Elephants before retreating to the air-conditioned van. We drove back to the hotel and had some lunch - a traditional Khmer meal. It was delicious! We all retreated to our rooms for a couple of hours. Ross and I went for a swim and had a cocktail by the pool.

We met up with Mr. Aun and Mr. Bo again at 2.30 for our drive out to Banteay Srey (Citadel of Women) - about an hour out of Siem Reap. This was a very small temple but probably the most beautiful we had seen so far (and the oldest - 10th century). It was made of pink sandstone and the carvings were so intricate. Unlike Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, Banteay Srey was a Hindu temple (not Buddhist like the others). All of the carvings depicted stories from the Hindu faith - most of them incredibly violent!

The sun was starting to set by this time and the stone looked golden. Despite being small, we took quite a long time looking around - the light was so impressive on the carvings. Again, Aun had to move us on so that we could get to another temple for sunset.

When we got to the temple, there were quite a few people there already but we managed to get a good seat. As we sat and waited for the sun to set, more and more people started pouring in. Luckily no-one could sit infront of us. As we cracked our Angkor Smooth beers, we watched a beautiful sunset over Angkor. It was a great way to end a great day.

Aun and Bo dropped us off at the hotel. Ross and I walked into town and had dinner at the Red Piano. We also managed to find an amazing spa called Bodia and we both had 4-hands aromatherapy massages for an hour. It was the best massage I had ever had! It was nice and strong yet relaxing and having two girls working on you at the same time was an amazing experience. Almost an overload to the senses!

We stumbled back to the hotel and fell into bed - relaxed but exhausted after a great day!