Angkor Archaeological Park

The next day we got up at 3:50am to begin our full packed day of seeing the Angkor heritage site. First stop Angkor Wat for Sun Rise. It was really lovely. Our expectations were provably set a bit ridiculously high but it was truly lovely when the sun rose over the central tower.

We then went to see Banteay Srei which was 37km from the main site and unfortunately it was really spoilt with the swarms of screeching and pushing Chinese tourists,which was a shame but I would recommend it even if though you have to travel far. Banteay Srei is a 10th century temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. It is the only temple made of sandstone which allows for the intricate wall carvings.

Next we went to to Pre Rup, East Mebon, Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som which were part of the outskirts of the Angkor site and had very few visitors. Personally Preah Khan and Neak Pean were by far my favourite as they were still true ruins with little to no restoration and set in a lake and jungle surrounding. It was beginning to get very very hot and quite difficult to keep going, but being who we are we did not give up.

The next stop was the very famous and ancient city of Angkor Thom which holds the iconic Bayon temple which is known for the giant stone faces that surround the towers. There are 54 towers each with 4 faces, a total of 216 intricate faces. We were beginning to get very weary.

It was now the hottest part of the day and although we had been waiting all day to see this masterpiece is was a true killer. We then plodded on to Baphuon, the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King. I was soooo thankful to see the smiling face and waving tuk tuk driver. I sat down feeling like absolute death to be honest. But this still wasn't the last stop. Our tuk tuk driver looked at us and said he's more than happy to take us home as we must have looked like a right pair! We were drenched from sweat, our hair was all over the place, we were just a mess.

We had a quick wee break and then headed to our final destination, Angkor Wat for the 3rd time in 24 hours. Although we'd already seen 90% of it we hadn't climber to the top of the center, where we were told there were incredible views of the site. So we powered on through ran straight to the middle and got to the top. It was really lovely, I wouldn't say it was quite worth it for a 3rd visit, but still.

We decided not to stay for sunset and headed back to the hostel. Our tuk tuk drivers was absolutely incredible he showed us way more temples that we expected and was just so patient, flexible and hospitable to our needs.

Now normal people would then go back to the hostel have a shower, maybe have dinner and then go to bed (we could barely walk...). Nope not us... We had booked a sleeper bus to take us to the Cambodian Islands. This was initially a romatised idea of well we can save money and we will sleep really well as we were so exhausted and then we will wake up rested, get a ferry to the islands, be able to find a hostel super easily and then be checked in and ready for a swim by lunch. Gosh were we wrong...Read more