Temple Run in Angkor

Angkor Wat was an incredible temple we had the pleasure of exploring twice, yet we still didn’t see it all. Throughout our two day tour of the Angkor Archaeological Complex we also visited many other amazing temples.

On the first day and after our visit to Angkor Wat, we spent the afternoon driving the 'short loop' visiting many temples including the Bayon temple and Ta Prohm Temple (think Lara Croft: Tomb Raider). The Bayon temple had 54 towers representing each province in Cambodia, all of which were carved with faces. The detailing was very impressive. Each temple we visited was built slightly differently but clearly still a family, despite being built over a 600 year period.

At one temple, we had an encounter with a family of lotus monkeys. They did seem quite placid yet rather curious, so much so a small one decided to jump on Jess to play with her trouser ties, blouse buttons and even hair. You can imagine Jess' face as this all unravelled, although she stayed surprisingly calm as Dan helpfully watched and videoed the event. After that, they were curious about Dan, so had a seat laying back against his leg before climbing on him too.

We ended the day at Phnom Bakeng (known as temple mountain), a 60m high mountain temple to watch the sunset. It wasn’t looking to be a particularly good sunset as the sun went behind clouds, but we stayed hoping the colours may change... and they did. As the sunset colours began to shine radiantly in the sky, the keepers said the temple was closed and tried to usher everyone down. As you can imagine a lot of people (including us) were stalling to try and see the remaining sunset. Luckily, we managed to see the best of it.

After sunrise at Angkor Wat (day 2), once picked up by Sovann again, we took the 'long loop' visiting plenty more temples. Unsurprisingly, they were all incredible, all showing similaities but still unique in their own way. An absolutely beautiful temple complex and we would genuinely recommend a visit to Cambodia just to see this alone. You simply can't appreciate the scale, beauty and detail of these temples without seeing them for yourself.Baca lagi