Sunday 8 December 2013

Siam Reap: Part 2 - Angkor Wat - UNESCO World Heritage Site


A chance to visit this ancient city was really a valuable experience to us. Besides, stepping our foot at various places, we also enjoyed and appreciated the knowledge that we could gain from the travelling especially when we visit historic places like the Angkor site.

Basically, the Angkor sites includes many many temples. The most well known temple is the Angkor Wat. Besides, Angkor Wat, other temples are Bayon Temple, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, Ta Keo and many others.

We spent about 5-6 hours here visiting most of the major temples. If we had more time, sure we will stay another day in Siam Reap and finish our tour. 1 day is not enough. Weather was sooo hot and humid. Both of us got sick once leaving this place.




We started our tour at 5 am. Check out from the lovely hotel very early in the morning and fetch by our   nice tuk tuk driver.


Fee for 1 day tour = USD20
(everything is in USD here)


The ticket counters



Snap some pic for our Angkor Pass



The Angkor Wat, early in the morning. Since, we never did any study before we arrived at Cambodia, we were not aware this was the Angkor Wat. haha.. luckily, we got some time spent and re visited this place before leaving the Angkor site


The Cambodian Government signed restoration and conversion of their temples with various countries. For Angkor Wat, it was with Tokyo. 
So, along the way, we met a lot of Japanese people guided by the Cambodian who speaks Japanese fluently. Really impressive. We thought that we heard a native speaking like that but it was not. Most of the Cambodian make leaving from the tourist business. So, being good at many languages is a must and added advantages. 

Besides, Japanese, we heard the Cambodian assisted the Korean (major tourist), Spanish and English. Really amazed us. 










As told by our tourist guide, this was a long time ago, a Library. There were 2 or 3 libraries build by the ruler. For the royal and high ranking community and for the public





One of the story told by our guide is about how the ruler fight with the bad king with a monkey army who stole the queen or the lady of the ruler. This wall was en crafted with the pics of the rulers fighting with the monkey army.


This is one of the ancient pool. There were a 4 pools within the cloister. Empty.






One of the most visited area in the Angkor Wat Temple. Unfortunately,we were extremely tired and just spent some time around here talking to the guide.


This is our guide. Very fluent in english. better than me.




Another climb. Worth visited.

The guide told us a lot of story about the Angkor and the ancient ruler. But since i am writing this blog 3-4 months after the trip, i cant remember all the details. He talked about how the ruler , Suryavarman II believe himself as a god related to God Vishnu. If i am not mistaken. 
How's temple was built? They engineers at that period utilise the benefit of the nature, river to float the rock to the construction area. And also elephant to pull the stone. The construction began around year 1113. The guide also talked about the war between the Cams and Thais. Can't recall the details. Fortunately, the temples in Cambodia was better preserved than in Thai, Ayuttaya.




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