29th – Temples galore-r

I was the only one who showed up in the hotel reception at 0500 to go back to Angkor Wat to try my luck again to get some decent sunrise photos. Getting there went swift, got a nice spot and was happy to find that the clouds were a bit more forgiving today than they were yesterday. Still didn’t get the deep reds and oranges that you sometimes see others get. Oh, well.

Returning a bit past 0700 I had time for a quick nap before the group met at 0900 to go and see 3 other temples in the area. The ones in question were the Preah Khan, Neak Pean and Pre Rup temples. Overall they were all very interesting in the sense they were all overgrown and left for nature to do its thing (as opposed to Angkor Wat which seems to get very well maintained) and our guide managed to find some that weren’t completely overrun by other tourists.

Ancient khmer warriors on the bridge to Bayon holding a giant snake.

Preah Khan temple.

Neak Pean temple. 

Pre Rup.

Returning again to the hotel in the early afternoon we had lunch before three of us went back to Bayon temple to see if we were able to get a good view of the sunset. Being there in the afternoon there were much less people which made it much less uncomfortably congested, but due to the overcast weather it ended up being not quite what we had hoped for. But we had had the chance to see the temple again in calmer conditions so the trip was still at least a partial success. We hadn’t planned for them to close the temple before it getting dark, though, but around 1730 they had everyone leave. It does make sense in a way, though, as walking around in the temple not being able to see anything could be quite hazardous. On the way back we stopped at Angkor Wat to see if we could get anything worthwhile with the sunset but it turned out not really to be worth it.

Not many sunset colors to be seen.

Coming back to the hotel the guide took some of us to a seafood restaurant where we had a huge pile of delicious fresh seafood; crab, shrimp, mussels, squid, cuttlefish and much more. There were no problems getting full. Followed by a few drinks and a walk through town in the dark enjoying the lights.

Siem Reap by night.

There were a lot of temples in Angkor (the name of the 400km2 area), too many to discover in one go. While we had a 3-day pass you could have gotten a 1-day pass (not enough) or a week pass, which, if you really would want to spend time here, would probably not be enough, either. I believe I heard someone satte there are more than 300 buildings and temples in the area that you gain access to with the pass, and while some are just a building in the middle of a forest, others are fairly large temples. I could easily have spent more time there, just tuk-tuk'ing about, stopping at random spots and seeing what would appear along the road. And while many of the temples are visibly decaying it doesn't look like they do much to stop tourists from entering and walking around in areas that already look like it's worn beyond repair. I would have thought that the national authority responsible for maintenance would have done more to protect them.