Suffering from extreme temperatures and even worse humidity, we arrived after an 8-hour bus journey to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor temples. These temples are the largest collection of Khmer architecture that exists, built from the 9th to the 15th centuries under the Khmer Empire. The Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II heavily influenced the build of many of the largest and most important structures, over 1,000 of which still remain. Due to our large array of things to see in the Angkor temples, we decided to dedicate three full days to visiting the main ones, which for us was sufficient. In any case, there is so much to see that one can easily get lost for weeks.

On the first day we had a tuk-tuk drive us to three of the main temples, which we quickly learned was the best method of transportation due to the extreme heat and humidity, as well as significant distances between the temples. We were first brought to the famous Angkor Wat, which is the main temple that everyone raves about, also considered the largest temple ever built in the world. It is truly beautiful and very special, and due to its immensity we decided to return there on our third day in order to finish seeing the highly detailed engravings*. After this we were brought to Bayon, an impressive temple that stands out for the serene and massive stone faces found throughout it. Finally we ended the day at Preah Khan, famous for the great quantity of jungle having grown within the temple, a truly unique site to see!

On day 2, we tried to save some money by renting bikes instead of being brought around by a tuk-tuk. Not the best idea… ; (. After visiting two temples we were completely exhausted, feeling over-heated and unfortunately not enjoying to the fullest. We saw Banteay Kdei, which to us did not stand out and felt a bit as a repetition of things we had seen on day 1, however this most likely was due to our mood. The second temple, Ta Phrom, was very beautiful, similar to Preah Khan with an immense amount of in-grown jungle. In any case, despite being surrounded by such impressive architecture, we called it a day earlier than desired in order to not melt away on our bikes…

Our third day was just fantastic. Starting off with our tuk-tuk that made traveling around very enjoyable, as well as our dynamic agenda including a short hike through the jungle. We started off seeing Banteay Srey, about 40 minutes out of Siem Reap, also known as the temple of women. We chose this temple as it is made of rose colored sandstone, and known to have some of the more detailed engravings of all temples found, said to have been done by women’s hands. After this, we traveled even further out to the River of a Thousand Lingas. This River, known as the Kbal Spean, is deep in the jungle of Cambodia and has wonderful stone carvings in the riverbed belonging to the Khmer Empire. The purpose of the sculpting was to bless the water running over it, bringing good luck to the empire which it nourished. After hiking 30 minutes uphill through the jungle, we arrived and were very impressed with these engravings literally underneath the water in the riverbed. On our way back, and after having taken a refreshing shower in a waterfall, we stopped at Pre Rup, another very nice temple with massive towers and lion sculptures, and finally returned to Angkor Wat to finish seeing the engravings as well as enjoy the famous sunset.

Three full days of devoted temple visits made us think that staying a fourth day in Siem Reap to just relax wouldn’t be at all a bad idea… So, our form of relaxing starting with… visiting the craftsmanship and sculpting museum! It was very impressive to see how they make all of the sculptures and large engravings literally by hand, be it on sandstone, wood or copper; they are undoubtedly very talented. To our defense, we did relax in the late afternoon with a great thai massage which would bring our days in Cambodia to an end. Now we would finally start heading South…

Next Stop: quick layover in Bangkok before the Thai Islands.

*For curious minds, there’s a interesting documentary on youtube about Angkor Wat that is very useful in order to have further information about it’s structure, symbols and historical background. http://youtu.be/-cA_kW92-Oo