Day 6 - Angor Wat

The primary reason we chose Cambodia was for Angkor Wat, and we easily could have chosen to spend 2-3 days touring the sprawling complexes. However, I have learned that after seeing a half dozen historic sites in any one country (pyramids, temples, etc), you're generally pretty satiated after awhile. So with that knowledge, we booked a day-long sunrise tour (that started at 4am) with a well-reviewed company.

They picked us up around 4am, and we made the short 15-min. ride in the darkness over the visitor center.

Once there, we queued in line to get our passes. You can see Ryan is thrilled about the time and very excited to get out there!

The passes were about $37 US per person, and quite high-tech in that they snapped your photo so that you could not share your pass with anyone else...which is a pretty good idea our national park system should adopt, as they're always underfunded.

We walked across a floating bridge in the pitch black to position ourselves right in front of the pond that allows expert photographers to capture the morning reflection of the actual Angkor Wat temple in the water. We failed to do, however, as we are far from expert photographers.

It is hard to describe the sprawling size of the temple, with so many walls hand carved/adorned.

 

It's massive, and crumbling due to age...so you can disrepair and repaired areas everywhere. What is fascinating is that because it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, the repairs are largely funded by, and undertaken by other foreign countries. Our guide would frequently point at areas all over the complex and tell us, "India is repairing this." or "Japan paid for all of this rebuilding."

We climbed up some very treacherous, pretty scarily narrow/steep stairs to get a birds eye view of the massive temple grounds. There was about a 20 min. wait to get up the stairs, which would have been much longer, except young children, the disabled, etc. are not allowed up (Ryan was underage and could not go up). If you had a fear of heights, you'd definitely also want to give it a skip.

This was the floating bridge (purchased it from Canada) we walked across from the parking area to the complex.

Our next stop was Angkor Thom. On the way there, we passed these elephants lumbering around, waiting for tourist to ride them. I want to say it was $30 for a ride, and since Ryan was able to ride one in a humane camp in Thailand, we gave this one a pass.

There is moat surrounding this Wat, with the statues of the gods on one side, and devils on the other.

 I believe this side was the devils...

 So we took a picture with the gods, who are probably nicer folks to hang out with.

Both the gods and devils line each side of this rode as you approach the entrance to the extraordinarily scenic Bayon Temple, which is known for it's Gothic towers all decorated with over 200 smiling faces of a favored King. (Luckily, Ryan was able to climb to the upper level of this temple, which closed for restoration the month after we left.) I think this temple was in some ways, a little more architecturally stunning.

I had a single banana in my purse for a snack, but Ryan was able to share it with this character instead. ;-) He thanked us by immediately fornicating with another monkey the minute he finished eating. Although monkey porn is not high on my list, it was pretty funny.

After visiting the Elephant Terrace (above), we went to Ta Prohm, the temple made famous for the Tomb Raider/Angelina Jolie movie that featured footage of the massive foliage overtaking the temple.

We had a great day with a guide who couldn't have been more fiercely protective of our family. He ensured we queued in the right spots, took so many photos of us we lost count, and just seemed to care a lot about our happiness in a way that you don't always experience in a big group.

We finished off our day with a dip in the two pools at our hotel. We had a vision of getting all the bug spray and sweat off with a splash in the rooftop pool. But they were both in the sub-Arctic temperature range, and we all suffered hypothermia within minutes, despite the oppressive heat.

So instead, we hopped into a tuk tuk and headed to town for another fish spa experience! We were so excited to have my parents experience this...but my dad opted out and had a foot massage instead. Well, we all did. ;-)

Followed by rolled ice cream made right on the spot, with fresh mango...

Dessert was before dinner, of course. But dinner was the most amazing meal we had in the country- a tiny stand of a mother and daughter (who was still in her school uniform) cooking only two things- sticky rice and grilled bbq pork. We inhaled our dinner, and ordered more. Then we ate that, and ordered another round. It was that good.

We ended the evening at the Night Market, in search of gifts and souvenirs for friends and family. All in all, it was a pretty perfect day. ;-)

Here's a few more pics of the day from my mom and Rich's camera shots that day: