Walking the long walkway to the entrance to Angkor Wat, I could not believe that I was here as I have been looking at pictures of Angkor Wat before and thought the place looked beautiful and amazing. David pointed out that half the walkway entrance has been restored already with plans to finish the other side. You could tell by one side the stones were all uneven and sinking in.
He also said that there is supposed to be Naga (snake) along the entire length, which is supposed to be rebuilt in the future with concrete.
He also said that there is supposed to be Naga (snake) along the entire length, which is supposed to be rebuilt in the future with concrete.
Angkor Wat was built between 1113-1150 and took 37 years to build, including digging out the 200m wide man made mote around the city. The temples were built for religious gatherings and not for the King to live in.
Entering the first "temple" entrance and then walking out to Angkor Wat, there was lots of details to look at as there were carvings covering every single wall! It is amazing when you realize the amount of work that was put into all the carvings as they are done manually by hand. Let alone how they built this giant temple with stones they had to transport by river from far away.
Entering the first "temple" entrance and then walking out to Angkor Wat, there was lots of details to look at as there were carvings covering every single wall! It is amazing when you realize the amount of work that was put into all the carvings as they are done manually by hand. Let alone how they built this giant temple with stones they had to transport by river from far away.
Angkor Wat is the biggest temple in the area and was made to be the best of the best with all of the decorations and carvings on the wall.
To enter the 3rd level of Angkor Wat, you cannot wear sleeveless shirts, so for some reason I decided to bring my rain jacket in case it rained later on. Oh, did I mention how f'in HOT it is in Siem Reap? It was going to be high of 40C and I had to wear my jacket inside the temple and was just baking. Even walking around outside the temples, I have never sweated so much in my life and pretty sure I was suffering from heat exhaustion. Good thing our Tour Guide also provided us with cold water bottles from his cooler he kept in his Lexus RX300, but it was still tough.
On the way to see the famous Bayon temples, the one with the big face carvings, we passed through South Gate where there were statues of Demons (on the right) and Gods (on the left) along the bridge gate, holding a Naga (snake). Some of the statue is broken and still needs to be restored.
Upon entering the South Gate, a large entrance overpass appears with four faces at the top.
Once passed through the gate, we stopped to see the monkeys nearby, which were on the side of the road.
There was a Mom and baby monkey hanging out and the baby monkey was playing with this man's tripod. Excitedly, I got my GoPro out but for some reason it was not turning on even though I just had it on a few minutes ago. It could have been due to it overheating as it was quite hot. Next thing I know I see the Mom monkey charge at Rebecca and take a swipe at her as Rebecca got too close to the baby hahah. She missed though. It was probably because we just showed up and did not take the time for them to get as comfortable with us. Finally my GoPro started to work again and attached it to my GoPole but the monkeys were scared of it. Video to come soon!
We reached Bayon temple and the outside court areas were in rough shape with walls that have fallen down. However, in the middle of the temple, they have restored most of it. Bayon temple was different as it seemed sort of like a maze as everything was closer together but not as much open space as Angkor. There were multiple pillars with the 4 faces and it was definitely one of our favourite temples.
The last big temple we visited was Baphuon and we were able to climb to the top of it. We definitely got a good leg workout with all the walking and climbing we did. We were both exhausted at this point but it was the last site to visit for the day.
For dinner, David recommended we go to the Kulean 2 restaurant which is a buffet dinner and also has an Apsara "dancing girl" show, as how they would have danced for the King. The "dancing" was quite slow with slow hand movements and beats but that is how they jammed back in the day.
Posted by Steven
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