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Today we went to visit Angkor Wat, everyone, who had been before, told us that we should also visit the other temples and not just stick to Angkor Wat. So we decided to book a tour, our tour guide was called Mony, he was superb and had great knowledge of the area, having a guide rather than going on your own means that not only do you get a description of what you're seeing they also know where to capture the best photos and they help you take photos of you too.
The first place that we went to see was the ancient city of Angkor Thom which is huge and contains quite a lot to see.
We entered the city via the South Gate above the gate was the first time we saw the stone heads. This gate had four heads above it facing north, east, south and west.
The first temple that we came to in the city was Bayon temple. This temple contained a lot of steps and some of them were very steep, the views from the top were stunning, you didn't have to climb all the steps there was a route around, but it was totally worth it.
On the way out of Angkor Thom city we passed the Elephant terrace. The 350 meter-long Terrace of Elephants was used as a giant reviewing stand for public ceremonies and served as a base for the king's grand audience hall.
We then passed the terrace of the Leper King. The statue was called the "Leper King" because discolouration and moss growing on it looked similar to the symptoms of leprosy, connecting it to the Cambodian legend of Angkorian king Yasovarman I having the disease.
Before we went for lunch we visited Ta Prohm Temple, to the east of Angkor Thom city. This is often refered to as the Tomb raider temple as it was used as a location for the film.
This temple had been overgrown by many trees and the restorers have left these trees as it looks very stunning.
In the afternoon we got to spend 2 hours exploring Angkor Wat, it is a huge surrounded by a moat. We entered by a stone bridge and through a gate, once through the gate there was a causeway that led up to the main temple.
I climbed to the top level of the temple and it was stunning.
On the way out we came to see a group of long tail macaques that were raiding the bins for sweet treats.
The last part of the tour we were taken to a mountain (we would call it a hill) called Phnom Bakheng, to watch the sunset and get a view of Angkor Wat from above.
Once the sun had set, we walked down from the top of the mountain and the noise of the cicadas in the trees was like a siren.
This evening we choose to go eat at Robamas it also had an Apsara dance show. When the menu arrived we realised that this was yet another restaurant in the same chain as the previous 2 nights and the menu was identical.
The dance show was brilliant and at the end of the show anyone who wanted could go up on stage and have their photo taken with the dancer, it would seam that no one wanted to do this, so up I got and after I'd had my photo taken a whole rush of people also did so, seems I'm a trend setter yet again.
