Husband and i took over 700 pictures whilst in Cambodia.
I managed to skim it down to 150 for facebook,
skimming it down to next to nothing for here will be uber tough!
Our first two days in Siem Reap were spent with a tour guide
who was recommended to us.
We ditched him for the 3rd day we were meant to have him,
it was a mutual dislike,
on the end of the 2nd day when we should have been making plans
for pick up the next day he drove away in his tuk tuk very fast.
He must have known we were going to whinge to him.
he kept wanting to do everything but see the temples,
which is of course why we came.
So on the 1st and 2nd day we saw the most famous temples.
For us it was a little bit too busy for our liking.
The buildings were awesome,
but in some parts it felt like Disney Land
(especially with the tour groups of Korean tourists!)
You wouldnt believe it from our pictures but these places were busy!!!!!
To be honest Angkor Wat itself was not our favourite
temple. We kept asking our tour guide why it was the most famous.
He didnt know
(he didnt know much)
I loved Bayon
with all the faces.
From a distance it almost looks like just rubble,
but close up those smiling faces are amazing.
Ta Prohm was the one i was most excited about but to be honest
it was too too busy, and it was also a giant building site,
scafolding and workers everywhere, it really detracted from the atmosphere.
If i were to do the Angkor Wat complex again i think i would
do it by cycling rather than Tuk Tuk.
As we kept driving by all the cyclists i felt so jealous of them being able to
explore the forest and temples at their own pace.
Those are the 3 temples I also saw the second time I visited the temples. I think Bayon was my favorite but Ta Prohm was just so impressive. Angkor Wat is the most famous because it is a lot older than the others. It was buildt when the area was Hindu, and there are many signs that talk about how it was modified to make it buddhist. Then king jayavarman came along as a buddhist and edited angkor wat and built the majority of the other temples. It's so famous because it's the symbol for Cambodians of the Angkor Empire when it controlled all of South East Asia. I can't wait to see more of your time in Cambodia. I just love Siem Reap...minus all of the tourists.
ReplyDeleteYes we heard from other people that it was historically important and how interesting all the carvings were....
Deleteour guide only told us that it used to have a lot of swimming pools!
I guess we missed out a bit on the true Angkor Wat...still impressive though!