"A Wonder of the World"

Sunrise over Angkor Wat
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Definitely one of the things we were most looking forward to was enjoying the magnificent splendor of Angkor Wat and it's surroundings. This ancient capitol of Cambodia was built between the 9th century and the 13th with the famous Angkor Wat complex built in the 12th. To see it all we started very early (5am) to see sunrise on our 1st morning.

We visited (in order)

'Angkor Wat: The place is HUGE!'

Day 1

A.W.
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Angkor Wat: The place is HUGE!!It apparently took only 37 years to build with the help of 1 million people and 1000's of elephants. Most of it is still pretty much fully intact apart from the towers (there are now only 5 Vs the original 12). On all the reliefs there are intricately carved scenes depicting different tales from Hindu religion. The main Wat (temple) is in 3 levels with very steep stairs connecting them all. As we were so early it was great with very few tourists to trip over.

Cheeky Monkey
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Elephant terrace (Angkor Thom): About 1km away is the city of Angkor Thom. At each of the 5 entrances there is a moat and bridge lined with 46 demons holding the Naga (huge snake) before the entrance which has the huge smiling face of the Budda above it. In it's heyday around the 10th century the city had 1 million residents when at the same time London had 5000 and was the capitol. Inside our 1st visit was the Elephant terrace by the Royal Residence. This has many elephants carved into a 10ft high wall.

One of many passage ways
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Prast Palilay (A.T). This was the 1st temple that we visited that has been partly reclaimed by trees. It was amazing to see haw the fig trees have intertwined with the structures to form very strange shapes and great photo opportunities.

Leper King Terrace (A.T.). This was the old court for the King and is so called as the carvings seem to have lost fingers and legs on the carved men.

Bayon (A.T): At the center of Angkor Thom is the Bayon temple. This has loads of towers with  the 4 faces of the Budda on each side (depicting the elements I think). Many of these towers are intact and other areas are being renovated by the Japanese so again very impressive.

Carvings everywhere
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Ta Prohm (Trees): This is the one you will have seen on the pictures and postcards. It is a ruin of a temple with trees sprouting from all areas. It was really outstanding.

Pre Rup (HIll): At the end of a packed day it was off to a temple up a hill to try and watch the sunset with most of the other visitors. Unfortunately for us it started to rain but still an amazing spot.

Day 2

Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som: All these were smaller temples on the 'circuit'. The 1st was the most impressive with it again reclaimed by the trees. After another morning though we were 'templed out' so it was off home to chill.

Steep Climbs
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All in all the place is awesome. The scale is much larger than Machu Pichu and it deservedly seems to be pulling in the crowds. I just hope that the crowds look after it better than they seem to be so far with people rubbing all the sandstone carvings (especially all the Buddha's breasts) all the time.