Temple Day…Today we would be visiting one of the largest religious buildings/complexes in the world, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is one of, if not, the main attraction to Cambodia. We had plans to tour a few temples that day, with Angkor Wat being the highlight. It was an early start that morning. We booked a tour guide along with a tuk tuk driver for the day. For the grand total of about $30 (we did tip more on top of that)…the prices here still amaze me. The tour guide ended up being a great idea because he was able to explain to us many things about the history of the temples that we were seeing along with showing us small details in the temples that we may not have seen otherwise.
Our first stop was Angkor Wat. The pictures that I had seen previously did not prepare me for the massiveness of it and the amazing engineering applied to the structure. The amount of detail applied to the many surfaces (walls, roofs, etc .) are mind blowing. It was hard to image the time and patience that was needed to build all of the structures there. Hopefully the pictures I shot can give people a glimpse of this amazing feat of engineering, but it is definitely something I would recommend seeing first hand in order to fully appreciate it. Sadly there are many signs of theft and destruction to Angkor Wat due to the many wars that have happen in Cambodia and the structure being unprotected over the years. I’m sure the structure was even more amazing in its prime after completion.
After shooting a lot of pictures we were off to the next temple, Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is where a portion of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider staring Angelina Jolie was filmed. It is another amazing temple and again it was hard to imagine the effort that it must have taken to build this temple. Nature has overtaken many portions of it which is evident by the massive trees that have grown over and on top of many potions of the temple. The trees add a uniqueness and beauty to this temple but also can and would destroy it without intervention. In many areas walls and roofs have collapse due to them not being able to support the weight of trees that were bearing down on them. Supports have been added to many areas of the temple in an attempt to prevent this from happening again. They are also in the process of restoring many areas of the temple.
Next was Bayon which is known for the “smiling Buddha’s”. Again, this temple is another amazing structure. I was beginning to see similarities in the architecture of these temples, even though many of them were built hundreds of years apart. Simple amazing!
After touring Bayon we were dropped off at our hotel. Our time was limited, so we were only able to tour three temples. We did plan on going back to Angkor Wat to shoot some pictures during the sunset. So we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us back and he agreed.
We grabbed some dinner then we were back in the tuk tuk heading to Angkor Wat. The sunset was very nice and I was able to get some good shots. Sunrise pictures would be much better but that would require being up sometime around 5am and we’ve heard that it gets really busy during sunrise at Angkor Wat. So we weren’t sure if we would make the trip or not.
All in all…a great day again.
Fred
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