Round the world in 7 months How will you know, if you never go?

This morning our tuk-tuk driver picked us up at a leisurely 8am for a tour of some of the Temples of Angkor.  Our overall feeling for the day…  difficult to say in words, but something like “WOW, absolutely incredible” would go some way to describing these amazing structures!

There are many many temples around Siem Reap so we had to be selective about which ones we were going to see in the two days that we are here.  A little background knowledge for you… the Khmer civilisation flourished between the 8^th and 13^th centuries.  The empire stretched from Burma to Vietnam, boasting a population of one million at a time when London was only a town of 50,000 inhabitants.   A succession of Hindu and Buddhist kings created intricately carved stone temples, and the right to dwell in such structures was reserved for the gods.  Thus, houses, public buildings and palaces around the temples were constructed of wood and have long since decayed.  Many of the temples have been restored somewhat since their re-discovery in the 1800’s but some have been left in their ruined state.

Our first stop was the ticket office to buy a pass, and then getting harassed by cute local kids trying to sell us everything from water to ponchos (yes it was raining!  According to our driver this is “very strange weather” for the time of year) to souvenirs, all of which were way overpriced.  We did buy a guidebook though, and then it was off to Banteay Srei, which is about 20km out of town and a pleasant drive through some local villages.

Banteay Srei was built by women, and is smaller than most of the other temples.  It is made of pink sandstone and the elaborate carvings are really something else, amazingly intricate and detailed.  There were quite a lot of tourists (Japanese tour buses everywhere!) by the time we got there but at least the rain had stopped!  We took our time wandering around taking photos and enjoying the peaceful scenery.

Next was Pre Rup, a bigger temple made of laterite, brick and sandstone that had huge towers (the highest one 40m) and lots more intricate carvings.  After that we went to Banteay Kdei, which was another smallish temple but this time in a ruined state similar to how it was discovered.  Again, some amazing carvings in the stonework.

The last one for the day was Ta Prohm, a 12^th century Buddhist temple and one of the three big ones on everyone’s list.  It has also been left in a ruined state, with the stonework crumbling and the jungle growing up all around it and tree roots working their way into the stonework – incredible!  In fact, Ta Prohm was used as a set for shooting two Indiana Jones movies (Tomb Raider and Two Brothers).  We spent ages wandering around inside the temple walls and corridors, got some great photos and because it is so large it even seemed like there were less tourists!  And to do our bit we also gave a donation to victims of the landmines who were sitting in a group under the trees playing music J