Our tuk-tuk driver and guide were here at 9 AM which was after we had had a light breakfast (we didn’t realize there was food in another spot so tomorrow’s will be better)
Riding the tuk-tuk was great and soon we were at the ticket office (which is not located at the temple sites but closer to town). We bought our three day pass (same price as two days) for $67 USD each (painful!). I was able to get cash from my bank account as well at an ABM.
Soon we were on our way to the first of quite a few temples. Angkor Wat is the most famous and it is quite beautiful. Our guide explained many (!) of the wall carvings which are mostly religious based so I was getting a bit bored. We were two hours there and the following photos tell it all.
Note the ballon in the upper right corner of the photo. That balloon simply goes up and down but apparently is high enough to give wonderful views of all the temple sites here.
Next off, what turned to be Caro’s favourite called Bayon temple, I thought it was gorgeous as well,
We took an hour long break for traditional Khmer food. It was good. Interesting about the money system here. Bills for food etc are in both Cambodian Riels or American dollars. (Even in convenience stores where we just went to get some munchies to eat while I write this).
Next was my favourite temple,Ta Prohm. Apparently Town Raiders 3 was made here (not much of an idea what that even was). I LOVED the temple itself. It had real character and there were numerous trees growing over the outside of various buildings.Really a neat place.
When we were seeing another temple or two I asked our guide how the 1975-79 Pol Pot genocide affected his family. He was 10-13 years old when it happened. He was forced to work in a commune type situation far from his family, working in rice paddies and moving buffalo dung. His siblings were scattered around as well. Horrible times for sure
We walked up a large hill to a temple under reconstruction. This location is where people watch both sunrise and sunset over the jungle and has a view of Angkor Wat in the distance. We were up there almost an hour waiting however it became clear shortly before sunset that the cloud cover and haze meant a lousy sunset so we headed down early.
A great day but extremely hot (about 35 C.
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