Siem Reap, Cambodia

Angkor Wat



Bayon- Angkor Thom



Banteay Kdei


Ta Prohm


Terrace of the Elephants- Angkor Thom


Terrace of the Leper King- Angkor Thom

We took the not so express "express ferry" to Siem Reap which was a long but very nice river/lake journey passing floating villages to the town Siem Reap. Siem Reap is a town purely for the benefit of tourists going to Angkor Wat and that's exactly what we have come here for!

A 5.30am start as we headed to the biggest religious complex ever built to see the sun hopefully rise (it didn't really) behind the 5 towers of Angkor Wat. We had Tuk Tuks and guide to take us around as much of the complex (25kmx10km) as we could in as long as we could last before we were templed out!

Angkor Wat built in the 12th Century for King Suryavarman was fantastic and despite the number of people around, it didn't feel crowded as we looked at the well preserved reliefs that corridor the outside of the Wat which depicted battles, and the fight for immortality.

We also looked around Banteay Kdei which was a Buddhist monastery in which all the Buddhist statues were buried upon converting to Hinduism.

Ta Prohm was what most people had come for. The famous 'jungle' temple was definitely worth the visit despite the masses of tourists. Originally a monastery, it has been completely left for the jungle to take over and is now subsequently collapsing. The trees were huge and were certainly taking over as the struggle to keep the monument from complete collapse goes on.

We also visited Angkor Thom which was my favourite. The 13th century royal city had plenty to look at including the Terrace of the Leper King which was thought to be a cremation platform and also the Terrace of elephants which had 2 meter high reliefs of elephants in battle. The grassy lawn was used for elephant fighting so that the king would know which elephant was the strongest.

The Bayon is a 3 tiered temple within the city. There are 52 towers all with huge stone faces carved into the sides facing N-S-E-W. It was a great temple to explore and the reliefs were more like cartoons and showed the Chinese invasion on the Mekong and also Khmer life with cock fights, and markets.

A brilliant day out despite the fact we were all exhausted after 11 hours on the go. We visited the main temples but you could spend a week exploring here. Today is rest day beforea few busy days in Bangkok.