Cambodia: Siem Reap - Day 2 - 16/5

We woke up early in the morning at 4am in order to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. However the driver was late! Fortunately we were just in time but due to cloudy sky, the sunrise was not as beautiful as I expected. Anyway it was still worth for us to wake up so early for the nice scenery around Angkor Wat in the morning.

The reflection of Angkor Wat on the water surface

Group photo (7 of us traveled together for the first few days as Michelle and Bernard left for Phnom Penh)

The children were playing at Angkor Wat Temple (6++am)

After breakfast, we went to Angkor Thom. It is a walled and moated royal city and was the last capital of the Angkorian empire. There are five entrances (gates) to the city, one for each cardinal point, and the victory gate leading to the Royal Palace area. Each gate is crowned with 4 giant faces.

Picture was taken outside one of the gates

Bayon is situated at the middle of the Angkor Tom city. Bayon was the Jayavarman VII's state-temple. There are 37 standing towers, most but not all sporting four carved faces. The best of Bayon are the bas-reliefs on the exterior walls of the lower level and on the upper level where the stone faces reside. The bas-reliefs on the southern wall contain real-life scenes from the historical sea battle between the Khmer and the Cham. Even more interesting are extensive carvings of unique and revealing scenes of everyday life that are interspersed among the battle scenes, including market scenes, cockfighting, chess games and childbirth.

Bayon - the state temple

The blue shirt that Dear wore matched the scene prefectly

Terrace of the Elephants is an impressive, two and a half-meter tall, 300 meter long terrace wall adorned with carved elephants and garudas that spans the heart of Angkor Thom.

After that, we continued our journey with another temple which I forgot the name. However in order to see this temple, we had to climb up the very steep stairway. I was really scared at that time as the slope of stairway is definitely more than 60 deg and the height is around 3 levels.

Unlike most Angkorian temples, Ta Prohm has been left in much the same condition in which it was found: the photogenic and atmospheric combination of trees growing out of the ruins and the jungle surroundings have made it one of Angkor's most popular temples with visitors. The famous movie "Tomb Raider" was shooted in this temple.

First time I saw such huge roots

In the evening we were back to Angkor Wat. Look at the crowd...