Angkor Tour Day 1

(2/18/11) We started our day at 4:00 in the morning and went to Angkor Wat for a spectacular sunrise. It was absolutely breath taking as the sun came up and beamed through the temples towers and the reflection of the temple in a pond. As I said breathtaking! We followed this with Angkor Thom which was built in the 12th century one hundred years after Angkor Wat. All of the temples here have large moats around them that represents the ocean or universe and the temple the earth. The towers represent the mountains reaching up to heavens. It's very spiritual. Any way, we entered Angkor Thom through the South gate where we saw 54 Demons and 54 Gods pulling on a large 7 headed snake. This snake was used to Stir the universal milk to get the elixir of immortality which the gods took for themselves and left the demons with nothing. Next we went to Bayon Temple. This is the largest temple in the complex. It has 54 towers representing each of the 54 Provence's of the kingdom. Each tower has 4 Buddha faces on it that was sculptured after the kings face. Very Impressive temple. Next we went to the Terrace of the elephants and the Leper Terrace. The terrace of the elephants was used by the king as pulpit and viewing stand for him and his court. It overlooks a large open area with 12 small buildings where once there was a rope strung between each building where female rope dancers would dance across the rope. This are is called Prasat Suor Prat. The leper terrace was actually a crematorium. Next we ventured over to Baphuon, This temple was built before Angkor Thom and marked the center of the capital. It was in the process of being restored when the Cambodian civil was broke out. The restoration efforts were stopped for 20 years and when they started again all the records had been destroyed so they had a huge jigsaw puzzle to work on. It is still being worked on today.



 

Sun Rise at Angkor Wat

  

South Gate into Angkor Thom



Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom

It's afternoon now and we are back at it. The first thing we did was go to Tonle Sap Lake to see the floating village. The village migrates with the movement of the water. In the wet season it lies just 11 km from Siem Reap in the dry season it might be 15km or more away. It's incredible to see people living like this they live most of their lives on the lake fishing for their food and capturing rain for water. There are some restaurants that cater to tourism, we stopped at one of them and saw a bunch of alligators in a pen. They use these alligators for their skins and sell souvenirs to tourists. The next temple we went to was Ta Prohm or what is called the Jungle temple. This temple was restored but they left some of the trees still embedded in the temple to show what it looked like when they discovered it. This shows how all the temples were before restoration. The temples were abandoned around 400 years ago so they all had the jungle growing all around and through them. It was very impressive. Next we drove by Ta Keo temple. We stopped for a picture from the car but did not go in. This temple was hit by lighting and never finished. I'm assuming that they though it was a bad omen and they abandoned the temple. Not much to see since it was unfinished and had no carvings. For our final tour of the the day we went to Phnom Bakheng. this is the spot everyone goes to see the sunset. It is situated up on a hill ( highest point in Angkor) so it overlooks the whole valley. We took an elephant ride to the top of the hill. It was a 20 min. ride. Riding an elephant it tough, very bouncy and you get tossed around a lot. Still very fun. Unfortunately when we got up to the temple the clouds were obstructing the sunset so we really didn't see anything. The temple was in the process of being restored but it was nothing special. People usually come up there to see the sunset. Well that was the end of the first day of touring Angkor. We got back to the hotel around 7:00 pm and had a drink at the bar. While we were there they had a group of girls come in and perform a traditional Cambodian dance. It was interesting and the girls were all dressed up in traditional costumes.

Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake

Children Playing on the lake



Home on the lake



Ta Prohm - This door was used in the movie Tomb Raider

Elephant ride up to Phnom Bakheng Temple

 

Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakhang Hill



The climb to the top of the Phnom Bakheng Temple