Well talk about a huge day - we were up at 5am to get our 6.45am flight from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap - a 45 min flight in a small propeller plane ! We landed and collected our bags from the trolley (while we were waiting the King of Thailand landed) and made our way to the Freedom Hotel, had a quick brekky and quickly headed out to see the magnificent Angkor Wat. First glimpses were very exciting! Our first temple was in the Angkor Thom - a huge 3km squared complex of temples. We stopped first at the Bayon, entering via the South Gate. It was built in the late 12th century and contains a heap of buddha faces... Its a beautiful temple with well preserved carvings (too hot to stand in the sun and listen to the story though)...A few monks hang around the temples to worship. We walked over to the Terrace of the Elephants where we had great views of the 12 Prasats Sour Prats opposite. We saw the Baphuon and then moved onto Phimeanakas - the Royal Temple. A steep set of stairs at the back leads the way to the top. You can see the old pools where the royals used to bathe and swim (one for men and one for women). Greats views at the top - you can see little temples pocking through the trees all around. Once we made the precarious climb down we checked out the terrace of the Leper King. A lot of statues have replacement heads on then - many were destroyed or sold during the Khmer Rouge days. Others are held in museums around the world. After a bowl of beef curry soup served in a coconut (yep!) it was onto the temple I'd been busting to see - Ta Phrom (or Tombraider temple). This temple had been left to the workings of the jungle. Just as we got there one of those massive 5 min downpours occurred so we were all drenched! It was amazing to see the trees grow over the solid stone and weave their way through the temple - its fascinating! We also saw the guy who is on the cover of the current Cambodia Lonely Planet Guide. This temple is great & i'm sure if i came back in another year things would look different. We then moved onto our last temple for the day - Banteay Kdei (this temple functioned as a monastery in the 12th century). We met some little kids who were asking for bonbons (lollies ! I was eating a lollipop at the time) I had some Natural Confectionery snakes so i gave them 1 each and they were rapt. After walking through this temple we decided we were 'templed out' so we made our way back to the hotel for a quick meal and went to bed early again - tomorrow morning its a 4.30am start to witness the sunrise over Angkor Wat !
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