Happy Birthday!-part one, the morning

 Today was absolutely the best day of the three in Siem Reap and as I write part one at 6 PM we are out tonight for an hour long tuk-tuk ride tonight at 7:30

Our tuk-tuk driver Choy picked us up at 8 AM and we proceeded back to the temples with this day’s temple visits called the Grand Tour (essentially temple sites that are not the “big” three that most people see).

We started out at Pre Rup temple.which was built in the 900’s 

Next it was East Mebon temple ( a mid 1000’s site)

After that, Ta Som.(a late 1200’s location)

There is a large man made lake nearby. In the middle of this rectangular lake is a square bit of land with a temple in it that is surrounded by water (basically a lake within a lake).There is a walkway across to the island. Incidentally the lake was dry for over 500 years until about 20 ish years ago it was rediscovered how to refill it utilizing the old canals and waterways that had long been out of use. The temple there is called Neak Poan.

We were at the next site, Preah Khan (late 12th century) wandering around when a temple policeman came up and asked us if we wanted him to show us around (his English was great). A big “yes” from us and fascinating 30 minutes or so of him showing us all the best places for photos and explaining various aspects of the massive site. He did suggest that people pay him about $10 (U.S. of course) which we gladly did. If only we could have had him as a guide the first day at the major sites! We really felt happy after spending time with him.

Note the photo above ( the fourth one in this group of photos) showing the doorway getting smaller and smaller in the distance. The purpose for that was a person had to stoop lower and lower as you progressed towards the sacred religious part of the temple (or perhaps the kings special area-honestly I can’t remember).

Finally we asked “our guy” Choy to drop us off at Angkor Wat again. The other time, with the guide we had, we had a  hard time as his English was not very good and we really had to focus on what he was saying and by the end of the day (two days ago) we were mentally and physically wiped out. Today we enjoyed the re-visit just to look around on our own.