After
hitchhiking nearly 500kms across Cambodia
, I finally made my way to Siem Reap the home of the largest religious structure in the world, the magnificent Angkor Wat.
I had heard so much of the Angkor Wat from other travelers who I met and so many of them told me amazing stories of it’s magnificence and beauty.
After wandering around the city a bit on foot, I found a hostel called Downtown Siem Reap and got a bed there. It had a pool and the people running the place were really friendly. After Siem Reap, I was heading back to Vietnam and needed to get a 3 months visa as I wanted to spend a long time in Vietnam and hence ended up spending more days than expected getting my visa sorted.
I spent the next day in Siem Reap exploring the city and laying by the pool catching up with some work. In the evening I met up with the friend I met in Phnom Penh previously and we decided that we would do the Angkor Wat together the next day.
It tends to get really hot in the afternoon so instead of cycling around we decided to rent a motorbike and do the Angkor Wat on a motorbike. We set off to the Angkor Wat at 5 am to make it in time for the sunrise.
After getting our passes which cost 20$/person for a day, we made our way to the sunrise spot. There were many people gathered by the lake to take a picture of the famed Angkor Wat at Sunrise! I wasn’t so much so interested in getting a picture so we set up a blanket a little away and sat down and relaxed as we watched the amazing sunrise!
As everyone was taking pictures, an Argentinian guy jumped into the cold murky water for a swim. We ended up talking to him after he came out and he said that he ‘had to get my 20$’s worth’ haha!
After the sunrise, we wandered around the park and made our way up a hill with a temple to the top called Phnom Bakheng, where we got an incredible view of the park. The complex of this temple was empty as it wasn’t one of the main temples so we got it all to ourselves to explore.
We then rode to the famous Bayon, the heart of Angkor Thom. Bayon, the temple of the face towers, was a pleasure to explore!
It was built in the late 12th or early 13th century as the official state temple of the Mahayana Buddhist King Jayavarman VII. The Bayon’s most distinctive feature is the multitude of serene and smiling stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak.
After exploring and obviously getting a few pictures for the Instagram, we visited a few nearby tiny temples, Baphuon and the elephant terrace. It may sound clique but exploring the Angkor Wat made me feel like I was in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie!
After exploring a couple more temples along the way we made our way to the Ta Prohm, the famous temple which appeared in tomb raider. It was incredible to see the temple taken back by nature. That’s the thing about life, the only thing constant is change.
This temple was heavily crowded due to it’s popularity, but was still a pleasure to explore!
We made our way to the Central Angkor Wat Temple and after a short photo session, we decided to find a nice spot on the grass in the shade in the temple, set up our blanket and had a relaxing lunch by the temple!
After spending a long time exploring the temples, it was getting very hot due to the afternoon heat so we rode back to the city and spent the evening relaxing by the pool. Climbing the temples of the Angkor Wat was tiring, to say the least and I slept like a baby that night.
I’m not much of a temple guy, I prefer hiking and camping in mountains over temples and also in my travels I had seen soo many temples already. That being said I have to admit that the Angkor Wat was truly impressive and left me in awe! I wished I could know how life was in the Angkor Kingdom during it’s prime.
