The entire site is called Angkor Archaeological Park. Angkor Wat is one of dozens of ruins in the sprawling 400 square km area. So yes, the place is huge and if you feel the need to explore each one, a one day pass is not going to cut it.
Sawah and I felt that a one day pass is enough, because besides Angkor Wat, the only other temple I was excited to see is Ta Phrom, from the movie Tomb Raider.
We set out on bicycle at about 10am. The weather was great with some overcast. If you don’t feel like cycling, take a tuk tuk. The going rate we see on the internet and in our hotel is USD15 a day, with an extra USD5 for sunrise. The sunrise trip starts at 4am. We gave that a miss. When we got to Angkor Wat, there were throngs of people just leaving, presumably the sunrise crowd. Sawah said she shed a tear or two upon seeing Angkor Wat from across the moat. She was that moved. Me, I was busy trying to figure out if we should see other temples first to avoid the crowd, which I’m glad we didn’t because that meant backtracking and Angkor Wat is the perfect comparison point to the other temples.
Wear comfortable shoes because there will be a lot of walking and staircases, and uneven pavements which even in my raised flip flop i feel could have done some ankle damage if I don’t look at where I’m walking.
When you cross the moat you will start to feel the sheer size of the place as the temple looms in. And then it will be some 500m before you actually enter the temple. We were in awe of the place as soon as we stepped in to the hallway (after we got over the initial confusian of where to start). The intricate carvings and pillars, and the size of the place were all so Instagram worthy that we just had to take photos right away. An hour later we were still taking photos. Like seriously there were too many corners, walls, courtyards and columns of pillars that came up oh so beautifully on our phones.Ok we did wonder about the place and what it must have been like before. Sawah borrowed a guide book from the hotel but I wish I had seen a documentary on Angkor Wat (Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider doesn’t count) before I went as we didn’t get past the first few pages of the guide heheh. There were too much details!
Angkor Wat is around 900 years old. It took 30 years to build. And no photos I’ve seen on the internet compares to actually standing there.
What we didn’t get to do is sit on the King’s throne. That area was closed for some restoration work that day. Might as well, because the stairs are steep and narrow. A certain quarter is particularly afraid of them, and one of the main stairs coming back down from the courtyard took her a whole 30 mins because she took them one at a time and stopped at each for a while to pretend like she’s taking photos; I had time to prance around and offer my photography service to a random Swiss couple coming into that area.
We spent too much time in Angkor Wat so by the time we left, our legs felt like jelly and it was a good time to stop for lunch. At this point we didn’t know how far out the rest of the temples are so again we took our time, had lunch and rested before setting off again. This was where we had some tasty chicken barbecue, at the stalls across the road from Angkor Wat.
The next temple we headed to was Bayon, which didn’t look like much from the outset. The Swiss couple I photographed earlier in Angkor Wat caught up with us and offered to include us in their guided tour but they went up the weird steep staircase, the kind you have to go sideways on, to get to a good vantage point of Bayon. I declined to follow, didn’t want to break anything. We wondered aimlessly for a bit until we were saved by a little boy who took us to good spots. Specifically, really good photography spots. We were thrilled, and after the fifth spot, he asked for money. We gave some as we consider that to be service, but I read that you have to be mindful of giving money to children. Tourists handing out money meant they would rather do that than attend school. True. But we can’t help it. Bayon by the way is the temple with those smiling faces. They were supposed to be some 200 of those smiling faces, but I guess they didn’t make it. It was built a hundred years after Angkor Wat, and my favourite.
After Bayon we headed out to Ta Prohm. And boy that was a long ride out. We only had half an hour at Ta Prohm and quickly went through the short route. There are now barricades and platforms to prevent you from walking up to the walls, which you don’t see when you looked up images of Ta Prohm on the Internet. The crumbly walls and huge banyan trees swallowing up the ruins are not as poetic with those barricades.
We didn’t make our time limit, but doubled it instead as we got out of the wrong gate and ended up backtracking to get to the right entrance where our bicycles were parked.
After Ta Prohm, a quick 5 mins break over water and coke, we cycled back out as fast as we can, sometimes asking for directions while still on the bike. We made it to town just as it got dark. Phew. In total, that whole return loop was almost 28km. Quite an exercise. Legs were wobbly and chafed after. Yes, some gym before such an expedition is recommended.
the.traveling.underpants 