We left our hotel with guide and driver at 6.30 as the light was dawning. We stopped at the Angkor ticket booth for our pass - it's $40 per person for a 3 day pass with your picture and everything like they do on a ski pass.
First stop Ta Prohm - our guide book describes it perfectly: Abandoned to the elements, a reminder that while empires rise and fall, the power of nature marches on, oblivious to the dramas of human history. Left as it was discovered by French explorer Henri Mahout in 1860, the tentacle-like roots here are slowly strangling the stones. This is where Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed.
Next stop Ta Kev which is far more like a pyramid with steep small steps but thankfully not as small as the ones of Wat Arun in Bangkok - those are positively scary. We then went back to our hotel for a bit of R&R by the pool until 12.30 when we were picked up again and taken for lunch at Reahoo Restaurant which belongs to Hanuman our guiding company. Lunch was a feast and in a lovely garden setting. Dessert was mmmm - oh so good, pumpkin in coconut milk.
Back to serious matters the third temple was Preah Khan built by King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century and is a sister temple to Ta Prohm we saw earlier. This was a very beautiful temple with long corridors, wonderful carvings, more monstrous roots invading the stonework.
Next was Neak Pean. Totally different to the other temples and not really a temple at all but more of an ornamental fountain and pond with 4 smaller fountains one of each depicting lion, horse, human and elephant. Very restful area and a nice walk across the reservoir to get there.
I think we did Ta Som and or East Mebon but there the day blurs until we got to Pre Rup. This is distinctively different - it's older and made of red bricks. It's synonymous with sunset in Siem Reap. We clambered to the very top just before 5.30 and then wondered about get down those almost vertical steps at dusk with hundreds of other people. Instead we nipped down and took a photo of the temple itself from ground level and it looked so pretty in the dusky pinkish light.
DAY 2
Angor Thom, the Terrace of Elephants which used to be the viewing gallery for the King to preside over celebrations and traditional sports. At the centre is the Bayon Temple - where colossal heads bear down - it's quite overwhelming and one of the temples where I'd be happy to spend hours and take hundreds of photos in the hope one of them I'd be proud to place on the wall at home.
Finally Angkor Wat - huge in size and grandeur - it's size has to be seen to be believed. It apparently took 300,000 people and 40,000 elephants to build - but sooo crowded. Thousands of people. I think lots of people must come to Siem Reap and that's all they see.
Our next adventure was a boat trip on lake Tonle Sap, we purchased our tickets and boarded our small bespoke boat.We motored up the lake and after a short while a number of floating houses appeared. The scene was like something between Mad Max & Waterworld, home made water craft with large engines bolted on to iron frames whizzed between the wooden shacks, tiny children bobbed around in large aluminium cooking pots in the caramel coloured waters.
We stopped to drift for a while and within no time, a dugout canoe was heading our way, Mum & two tiny kids on board one of which had a huge Boa Constrictor writhing around his tiny body. Debs has a major snake phobia and as you can imagine with no where to run this was her version of hell. Using a mixture of hand and facial expression I managed to relay my urgent message to our new friends and they quickly paddled away.
Our guide asked us if we would like to see the Crocodile (one? we presumed) We tied off to a large floating market and clambered aboard, climbed some rickety steps and peered into a large wire enclosure below deck half submerged,there lay maybe sixty or so Crocs all intertwined, panting and rather smelly.
Time to go and so off we motored back to relative reality on shore!
Nearly New Years Eve.
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