Our day in Angkor Wat began early at about 6:45 AM. We had to get up, dress, breakfast, and get on the bus by 7:45 AM. I may have mentioned in earlier posts that it has been hot and humid in several of the places we have visited so far, but Siem Reap and Angkor Wat beat them all. By 8:00 AM, the temperature was hovering around 90°.

When approaching Angkor Wat, it is easy to think that you are in some remote part of an even remoter part of the world. However, it is only about 20 Km from Siem Reap. As we left the bus and began walking toward the access bridge across the moat, we began to realize that “Yes, we really are here!”

Our first look at Angkor Wat

The welcoming committee - a local macaque monkey. They are wild, but they know the humans will not harm them and are bold enough to come up and beg.

As we entered, our Guide/interpreter, Sam, told us that we would be able to take a picture at the famous reflecting pool that seems to show up on all the Angkor Wat postcards. Exciting…

 

The famous reflecting pool. It is little more than a mud puddle, but it makes a beautiful reflection.

Here we are mucking up the beautiful view...

It took us about an hour to make our way into the center of the complex and the location of the highest tower in the temple. The steps were very steep and Bonnie decided it would be more fun to watch me work my way up - and down. Once at the top, the view was spectacular!

The view from the top.

I made it up and down, but it was harder down than up...

After leaving Angkor Wat, we made a stop at the Siem Reap Museum; however, Bonnie and I opted to wait in the cool of the lobby area, have a soft drink, and get ready for the afternoon’s assault on Angkor Thom. 

Ahhhh...a fan and some cooling air in the museum. The only air conditioning was in the museum shop and that took about three minutes to look through.

Angkor Thom is the other famous temple complex in Siem Reap that is many times larger than Angkor Wat, but not as well-known or visited. Angkor Thom is still mostly jungle and there are ongoing rebuilding/reconstruction projects at several of the larger sites. Actually, Angkor Thom is the home of the Ta Thoem Temple, the site of Angelina Jolie’s filming of “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”. Many of the locals have just about deified her for her additions to the local economy, her adoption of a local orphan, and her support of local charitable activities.

Our lunch at the Tara Angkor Hotel was another sumptuous buffet that was even tastier than that at the Sokha Angkor the evening before.

After lunch we made it to Angkor Thom and visited two of its three main temple complexes, all under reconstruction. The first was the Bayon Temple, the Temple of the Smiling Faces.

I finally got to kiss a Buddha!

The second temple was the Ta Thoem Temple, mentioned above. Seeing the trees seeming to suck the walls right into their “ground mouths” was so different than what we had seen at Angkor Wat.

The access to the Angkor Thom temples was along paths through the jungle. Although the areas immediately adjacent to the pathways had obviously been subject to human interaction, it was easy to imagine that much of this primeval forest land had never been trod by two-footed creatures. Frankly, we thought the afternoon visit was even more exciting and interesting than the morning visit. Even though it was hot and humid, we didn’t have to do the climbing that we had to do at Angkor Wat. What little climbing we did was only few steps at a time.

The bucolic entrance to Ta Theom temple at Angkor Thom.

The famous "Lara Croft:Tomb Raider" tree...I suppose we should have seen the movie in anticipation of viewing this historic site.

That evening, we were treated to a local show of dancing and music, along with yet another buffet that would have fed three times the number of people there. We hoped that the leftover food was distributed to the staff or some other worthy endeavor. We would not like to think that it was just discarded.

The cap on the evening was the local show provided by the hotel. It was exclusively for our group (only 18 of us)! 

The next morning we boarded a bus for the short trip to the airport and our flight to Saigon. The flight was uneventful, except that it was on a prop-jet. We haven’t flown on one of those for decades!

The next post will be on our stay in Saigon. Stay tuned…