Terrace of the Elephants Siem Reap

Unlike most of you on Boxing Day who were sat in front of the tele, eating left over turkey and playing with your presents - as it should be. We were sat on a bus worrying that Brad was going to be deported from Cambodia.

On Boxing Day we started our journey to Cambodia - our final destination. On the bus Brad was asked if he had another …

Where shall I start...??? Cambodia is just amazing!

It starts with the people, after all what happened in the history of this country, they keep on smiling and think positive. Everything happens with a smile and nothing seems to be pushy, at least that is my experience. The level of English is also very good comparing to the neighbour …

Early to rise this morning! Woke up at 4.30 to get the Tuk-tuk from outside the hostel at 5.00. Didn't take too long to get to Angkor - about 20 minutes. The roads were fairly quiet although there were plenty of Monks out for their morning duties.

On arrival at the Angkor Complex we had our photos taken for the temple pass and then Niam, …

I organised a bus with a travel agent to take me from my hotel to Siem Reap. I'd heard the border was fairly dodgy so I did a bit of reading up about it first so I'd know what to expect. The bus picked me up at 7am but it was practically empty so I managed to lie down and sleep the first 4 hours to the border. The bus, which i had presumed …

02 Dec.
Arrived in Cambodia we were flooded with greetings, smiles and very helpful people. But also with hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers wanting to bring us somewhere else. Super annoying after one day.

After checking out the old town we headed to the nearby lake Tonlé Sap for a beautiful sunset view. On the way down to the lake …

Con panne y cambio de bus, llegamos después de 6 horas de viaje a Siem Riep, ciudad turística del estilo de San Pedro, guardando las proporciones. Nos estaban esperando en el terminal (joya!!) y llegamos a nuestra habitación, la que tenía ventilador de techo solamente. El calor…te lo encargo, unos 34 grados y la humedad peor, de 90%...o sea, …

Was also going to call this one "Don't Fear the Siem Reaper"

Flew from Saigon to Siem Reap. After a fairly easy breeze through customs and another full page in my passport taken up with a visa (I only have 4 pages left now) a nice boy from our guesthouse picked us up from the airport and shuttled us in his tuk tuk (or Remorque-moto as …

Siem Reap was our city of choice when it came to celebrating the New Year and it proved to be a outstanding decision. Not only does it have authentic Khmer culture and ancient history with the temples of Angkor it also has a thriving city with a plethora of markets, restaurants, bars and incredibly friendly locals.

We ended up spending …

From door to door, Bangkok to Siem Reap, it took us just over 13 hours of exhausting travel. It began at 5:30 am when we headed out the door to board the ancient rickety train to Thailand's border town with Cambodia. Arriving at Aranyaprathet around noon, we haggled for a tuk tuk to the border. Once there, well-dressed name-tag wearing men tried to …

2nd day - Angkor Wat, Bayon, Baphuon Temple, Terrace of the Elephants, Ta Prohm
3rd day - Eastern Mebon, Banteay Srei, Neak Pean, Preah Khan
4th day - Bakong, Lolei, Preah Ko

**need to find others on day 3

... steps added for tourists were completely taken up by petrified Koreans inching their way down. We walked to the Terrace of the Elephants, to see a multitude of carved pachyderms and get amazing views over the central square, where military maneuvers ...

... boring you with the details, we go from the Bayon to Tep Pranam, Kleangs, The Royal Enclosure and Phimeanakas, Baphoun, Terrace of the Elephants. From there to Ta Phrom, our favourite temple where the jungle has been allowed to overgrow the structure, ...

... in awe at how they were made, how long it must have taken them to do it and how wonderfully intricate the whole thing was. The Terrace of the Elephants had hundreds of carvings of elephants all around it, some with 3 heads strangely - we're sure this ...

... of carvings and it is not until you get up close that you can make out the intricately chiselled figures (PICS). The Terrace of the Elephants is the complete opposite - up close it is hard to see what the carvings represent, whereas if you take a few ...

... remote areas on our final day at Angkor.   Our next stop was Angkor Thom, which includes the Bayon and The Terrace of the Elephants.  It rained pretty substantially for a while and limited our photo ops, but even in the drab light the ...

... explore as many of the sites as possible. Our first stop on Sunday morning was Angkor Thom... as we made our way around the Terrace of the Elephants, the Palace of the Leper King and finally the Bayon, we were all bowled over by the beauty and detail ...

... . I wanted to see if there were any lepery-type things there. But there's nothing much left anymore. Just like the Terrace of the Elephants. They are terraces with stairways that lead to nowhere but I climbed them anyway, as you do. There is only ...

... ;here than in Thailand and really enjoy having their pictures taken.  Angkor Thom is also quite impressive with its reliefs of the Terrace of the Elephants and the" Terrace of the Leper King".  We can still see elephants at work around this ...

... treated to an endless variety of angles and compositions of the 216 heads carved into the stone. A photographers dream. Terrace of the Leper King - Elephants (1190-1210)  Not a whole lot is known about this temple.  I couldn't really ...

... . A small entrance also led the way into a trench like maze where there were many more. Next to this was The Terrace of the Elephants, an aptly named 300m wall with hundreds of elephants (and Garuda's, the mythical Hindu half bird half man creature). ...