Siem Reap – Angkor Wat
We bought a three day pass for Angkor Wat The first day we hired a tuk tuk and the driver took us
out there and waited while we visited the temple and then drove us to the next one. Angkor Wat is
the largest religious construction in the world, built at a time when Cambodia was a rich and
powerful nation. The capital was move elsewhere and the area was abandoned for 5 – 6 hundred
years , overtaken by the jungle and discovered about 100 years ago. Angkor Wat is one of many
temples in the area, some date back to 900 all built by kings as temples to themselves as king gods
and their final resting place. Angkor Wat is most impressive, surrounded by a moat the entrance is
across a causeway where there are steps up into the temple. There are many steep steps in all the
temples. In Angkor Wat every piece of stone is carved. From high ceilings, doorways walls, there is
not a part which does not have intricate carvings on them. Scenes depicting wars, heaven and hell,
mythical creatures and mythes are truly amazing. There are five towers, all very steep to climb, the
largest in the centre where the King was laid to rest. Next temple to visit was Angkor Tom,
crumbling in parts and being restoredwe felt like we were in an Indianna Jones movie set, we had
great fun climbing up towers and along walls that would never meet Australian OHS standards. Next
was Ta Prohm a temple which nature has overtaken, trees grow through the structure of the temple
in some places holding it together, in others causing it to crumble. The next day we rode our bikes
out to the further temples. These were not as busy, yesterday was very crowded, so we could take
our time to look, climb and walk around .We really enjoyed exploring these less popular temples
and our favourite of all was Preah Khon, a large temple with many carvings and statues in quite a
bad state because of trees but being restored.
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