Day 33 Siem Reap

Started the day with breakfast in the hotel, pretty good western style food offered.

Met our guide and driver at 8am to go to our first site of the day. Most of the temples we saw were in the same area, just a few miles from each other.

This morning we visited the monumental and magnificent  Angkor Thom, the last capital of the Khmers, with it’s Elephant Terrace, the Terrace of the Leper King and the stunning Bayon Temple. This 12th century masterpiece is at the center of Angkor Thom and is an archaeological marvel of symmetry and grandeur.

We continued on in the extreme heat to visit Thommanon, Ta Keo and Ta Prohm.    Ta Prohm Temple has been left largely in it’s natural state since its ‘re-discovery’ by French explorers in 1609.  Surrounded by jungle, it is a labyrinth of stone hallways and is overgrown with the roots and limbs of the massive banyan trees. Several scenes from the movie Tomb Raider (Angelina Jolie) were filmed here.

After a quick lunch on to visit to Angkor Wat, the largest temple complex in the world, with the volume of stone equaling that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. It is unlike all the other Khmer Temples in that it faces west. It is a 12th Century Hindu Temple complex covering over 400 acres . There are two 200+ foot stone reliefs, one telling the story of the kings rise to power and the other to immortality. We were gob smacked at the enormity and colossal complexity of it all.

The whole experience left us in awe, also incredibly filthy and sweaty!  What a fantastic day.