Siem Reap day 4

Second Angkor Wat day today. Yesterday I wasn't overly impressed with our tour guide, he was very nice but not super informative.
We got scooped up by a bus at 10, and from two full tour groups yesterday, only three of us had booked the 2-day tour! I was very happy when we arrived at our first temple, Preah Khan, when our new tour guide Sam gave us a 10 minute introduction to the temple! I think I learnt more in those 10 minutes, than the whole of yesterday haha.
Before we even set foot in the temple, I spotted the nearby trees moving, and a little brown gibbon appeared! Even our guide was excited, which means it's a rarity. Unlike the monkeys I'd seen thus far, this guy was an ape, so had no tail and very majesticly swinging through the trees. It made my day, and we hadn't even started the tour properly yet!
Preah Khan was built by the same king who built Ta Prom (tomb raider temple), in honour of his father. It was a huge temple, during its peak almost 100,000 officials and servants lived in and within the temple boundaries as it was used as a centre of organisation. It was built as a Buddhist monastery, however King Jayavarman VII was trying to unite the two religions at that time (Buddhism and Hinduism). So even though he practised Buddhism, he showcased many Hindu similarities on the monuments in the temple. Despite this, his successor walked away from Buddhism and as a result, statues of Buddha in the temple were removed or reworked into despictions of Hindu deities.
We then visited Neak Pean, a Hindu temple built in the 12th century on a island in the middle of a huge 5km man made lake. The temple itself was very small, however the water lilies and lotus on the surrounding water were stunning.
It was so hot, a well-needed break for lunch was in order.
In the afternoon we saw Ta Som and Pre-Rup. These are less popular temples so there was barely anyone else there. It was so warm, and we had a lot of time to before sunset, so we sat in the latter temple and Sam told us more about the history of Cambodia, pre and post Khmer Rouge regime, and there is a lot more to the history of the country and reasons to why certain events happen that they don't tell you in the museums!
Our final temple of the day was Phnom Bakeang. We hiked a short 10-15 minutes up through a jungle-y path, following the crowds of people also heading the same direction. It's a very popular sunset point, so we certainly weren't alone at the top. Sunset wasn't spectacular, but it was still nice, there were lots of pink wispy clouds. We got a 360 view of the surrounding area, and could even see Angkor Wat sitting amongst the trees.
After a long day, we finally got back to our hostel just after 7, and ventured out for some food in the evening.Lue lisää