Tomb Raiding at Angkor Wat, Siem Reap.

As soon as we were off the bus from Kratie we booked up for the next day to head to Siem Reap - another day on the buses ahead. It was a 6 hour ride but we were all dropped off at a station a few km out of town where the bus companys tuk drivers would take you to town - themselves offering the usual local tours.. An interesting way of ensuring a few extra uptakes!! On arrival our hotel brought cold towels and lemon ice tea - now compared to other places we'd stayed this was a real luxury, and as one of the cheapest so far it was now a certainty we'd like it there!!
The main district for tourists surrounds the eponymous 'Pub Street,' home to a whole range of cafes, bars and fish-spas erupting into a manic crowd at evenings and especially weekends. We took a few days to plan our method for visiting the Angkor temples, at first bike seemed viable though the more time we spent in the afternoon heat the less appealing it became. We walked around a fair bit of the city, seeing its different faces - when we were first arriving it felt like LA with wide roads and low lying shops, the river winding through the city gives a Parisian feel and then as we left our hotel nearer the backstreets it was like Spain or Portugal with red orange dust being kicked up by the mopeds..
Finally one morning we set off to the temples. Having bought your ticket for 1-3 day entry you have access to all of the temples on site - depending on your passion for the subject you can take a week ticket but we guessed we could be done in 2 days.. Firstly the world renowned Angkor Wat, a national emblem for Cambodia and the top tourist destination. You crossed a bridge over the vast moat surrounding the site and entered the grounds through the Western gate - with many temples you'd traditionally enter through the Eastern entrance, not the case nowadays. We took our time, taking in the masonry covering the walls - the bridge had been re-built a few years back and was not distinct in any way.. We carried on in and instantly had the famous view, the Wats pagoda spires blackened by the sun behind. We took a walk around the outer walls of the temple with it's vast bas-reliefs depicting armies, wars, animals, gods and kings before heading further in and around the centre - the main pagodas were entered via a queue which had reached a length we didn't fancy so we gave them a miss - knowing we'd be back the next day a bit earlier. We carried on round before leaving to move on - next stop, the Southern entrance to Angkor Thom. A much larger site, when you first cross the bridge either side is a long naga (mythical multiple headed snake) being held/dragged by thirty or so human statues - strangely all missing their front feet.. Although a lot of restoration is taking place over the whole site there are thousand upon thousand of unretreivable images and pieces that have been looted over the last few thousand years, in particular around 40 years ago. The gate itself was interesting, featuring the first Bayon face we'd seen - the smiles of which could rival the Mona Lisa for their entrigue. Carrying on through we encountered our first monkeys on site. We stopped and bought some bananas to feed them, they promptly joined me in the tuk and tried eating the flower shaped light - and stole our lighter!! It scampered off up a tree despite efforts to trade fruit and only thanks to the girl we'd bought them from did we get it back ten minutes later. After claiming back our vehicle from the primates we headed to the Bayon itself, the central temple of Angkor Thom. In a more ruinous state it involved more clambering around, each pagoda featuring the bayon face near its peak making you feel watched from all angles. We moved on to the Baphuon, the first fully reconstructed site we'd visited. Early attempts to secure the structure seemingly created more problems and collapsing before heavy looting left the building strewn across acres of forest surrounding the site - only one standing wing and original photographs had allowed them to create what now stands. A long raised path leads to the building from the 'Terrace of Elephants' featuring several carved elephants and images of Garuda.
Next we headed out of the Eastern gate toward two smaller temples - Spean Thma and the Chapel of the Hospital, the latter was in quite poor shape, we walked through the entrance door though could quite as easily have skipped over the wall - we spent little time here before heading over to Spean Thma opposite. Here they were setting out tea-light candles for a dinner event that evening which i'm certain would have looked pretty cool at night.
We moved on to Ta Keo, another that had been largely rebuilt which made it look rather obscure, almost cubist.. Next up was Ta Prohm, a favourite with visitors for two reasons - firstly it's featuring in the 2001 Tomb Raider film and secondly it's overgrown state - trees still in place amongst the boulders half destroying half maintaining their shape. This was quite a beautiful place though again overrun with sightseers fitting in - and getting in the way of many a photo.
We moved a little further down to Banteay Kdei which though slightly damaged retained a lot of charm through more intricate sculpting compared to a few of the last places we'd seen. We exited and took in the vast Sras Srang lake opposite before heading to Pre Rup to join the throngs there to view the sunset. This was nice, the temple was made from pink sandstone so in the light of the hour it resonated wonderfully. We soon headed back shattered and almost fearing waking up the next morning - our aim was to see sunrise, meaning a 4.45 departure..