Today is our last full day in Siem Reap so we decided to revisit Angkor Wat as Peter had missed out because he was ill (and you cannot come all the way to Siem Reap and not see Angkor Wat!) We left the hotel at 5:30am so that we would get in to look around in first light and we passed the sunrise mob as we walked in - that was me 3 days ago!
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| The sunrise crowd |
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| Peter finally made it to Angkor Wat! |
After a couple of hours looking around Angkor Wat we jumped in to our tuk tuk to Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom, which means great city, is actually a walled enclosure of temples, which are in different states of ruins, rather than a temple on its own. We spent a few hours walking around and viewing all the different temples.
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| Phimeanakas temple |
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| The terrace of the elephants |
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| The terrace of the lepers |
We were hot and tired after walking around Angkor Thom but there was one more temple we wanted to visit before we headed back to town for lunch.
Ta Nei is a small temple located deep in the Cambodian jungle and is off the tourist route so it is rarely visited. Archeologists have left Ta Nei as it originally was - Tree roots split open the temple stone, and jungle flora sprawls out across the temple grounds. Ta Nei has had minimal reconstruction and clearing efforts and as a result, is classed as a truly “ruined” ruin. To get there it was down a very dusty, bumpy track but it was worth the journey - when we arrived we were the only ones there and Peter said as we were clambering over rocks to get in that it felt like we had just discovered it and I knew what he meant!
We then travelled back in to Siem Reap for lunch, a bit of shopping and some ice cream! In the afternoon we relaxed at the hotel.
We have really enjoyed our time in Siem Reap but we are looking forward to our visit to Phnom Penh.
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