Angkor Wat. Part 2.

After our mid day break we returned to the City of Temples to explore the biggest temple on the site, Angkor Wat.  We arrived just in time for a 30 minute monsoon so we took shelter in the temples outer wall and learned all about the Khmer Rouge battles that took place here in the 1970's.  Also learned a lot of crazy facts about the place.  For example:  The stone used to build this place was quarried 50 kilometers away, and no one knows how they got it here.  The temple was built on a swamp and the only thing keeping the whole structure from crumbling is the massive moat that keeps the ground saturated, this moat was hand dug and took longer to build than the actual temple.  All the carvings used to be covered in gold.  This place really was pretty incredible.  I had a lot of fun there.

 

 

 

 

Khmer Rouge bullet holes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swimming pool?

Angkor Wat. Day 1. Part 1.

My main reason for coming to Cambodia was to see Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins.  It was completely worth it.  There are actually hundreds of different ruins as this place used to be a massive capital city of the Kmer Kingdom.  Angkor Wat is just the biggest of all the temple ruins here.  So my first night at the hostel I made friendly and found a temple touring partner named Sophie from Wales.  We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around the massive historical park.  Our first stop was the main attraction, Angkor Wat, but only to see it during sunrise.

Angkor Wat for sunrise.

 

 

As soon as the sun was up we left Angkor Wat without even going in.  The plan was to avoid the main crowds so we drove on to a place I think was actually my favorite ruin of the whole place called Bayon.

 

 

 

 

After Bayon it was on to Angkor Thom.  Actually, Bayon is part of Angkor Thom but the place is so big it deserves to be separated here.

 

 

 

This little person followed us around, but never said a word.

Our next stop was a very popular place.  I came to learn that it is so popular thanks to the movie Tomb Raider.  I've never seen it but apparently parts of it were filmed here.  This ruin has been taken over by large trees and their roots, making it pretty dang cool looking.  It is called Ta Prohm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last stop before taking a mid day break was a pyramid looking ruin called Preak Khan.

 

 

The gate leaving Angkor Thom.

This was all just the first half of day one.  It really was pretty spectacular and pictures don't do it justice.  It was quite miserably hot and way too many tour buses full of Asians.  (yeah, even in Asia most tourists are Asian, there's a lot of them)  We took a little break back at the hostel and came back later that night to see Angkor Wat.  That will be up soon!