An evening to remember in Siem Reap City

The previous post in this series is here..

It had been a long day. We had woken up at 3:45AM to leave the hotel at 4AM and had made 6 stops by noon. Had eaten parts of the packed breakfast (San could eat a lot more than me given the allergies) and some energy bars and kept going. By 1PM when we came back to the hotel we were exhausted. After a 3 hour nap and some Wagh Bakri chai, we decided to go enjoy golden hour along the river.

The plan was to walk along the river, cross over to the night market restaurant area, eat dinner and walk back to the hotel. It was just a 20-25 minute walk. The river walk was beautiful. Then we walked to the same area where we had found dinner and decided to go to a different restaurant. I thought the writing was in Telugu from a distance.. turns it out was in the local language. The food was decent. We both were developing a sore throat. So we stuck to simple safe items. We were the only ones in the restaurant as it was still early.

Enjoyed the food and walked back.. Saw a cat restaurant on the way back and was missing the little one. She loves cats. I am told that one day I will be a Crampa (cat grandpa).. and that is all the pa I will get.. but given I am allergic to most cats, that privilege will be lost on me.

A video highlights reel..

We got back to the hotel by 7 and it was lights out. Our driver had promised one more sunrise, this time we would actually get to see the sun come out over the forests atop another temple on the hill. We were to leave the hotel by 4:30AM.. again. San was in two minds and said she will decide at 4AM, but I begged her to join me in the morning and we dozed off.

The mother of all temples - Angkor Wat

The previous post in this series is here..

We had seen the outside perimeter of the Angkor Wat temple earlier in the morning when watching the sunrise. Instead of going into the temple with the crowd, we had visted Bayon temple, the tomb raider temple, Banteay Kdei temple and Kravan temple and finally made our way to Angkor Wat.

Our driver said we could walk around ourselves and follow the crowd or better take an official guide from the entrance for 15 USD. So he found a guide who was his friend. This guy had practiced English lines with a Boston accent and he recited the lines at the right locations. He happened to be a decent photographer (not the same caliber as our driver but not bad). He told us there are 3 courtyards. The outer which we were in, the middle courtyard and a top courtyard which involved climbing a bunch of steep stairs.

The sun was up and there was no shade once we reached the middle courtyard. So we told our guide “while we have the energy, lets go to the top and do the difficult stuff first”. He was surprised by the request but said “whatever you want!”. So up we went, saw the main shrine first, then we came down and everything else was relatively a piece of cake.

The building below is the library in the background. No books. That building was just amazing. The moat around the temple was equally amazing. 1.3 km by 1.6 km with a 90 feet moat around the entire perimeter that was manually dug and filled !

The four main corridors converging below a square rock that align perfectly on a compass with the main directions.. marvellous engineering from a 1000 years ago!

We walked around the middle courtyard and made our way out through some stores to the parking lot. The guide said “I have to walk back a km to the point where we started our tour. you guys go straight up and turn right and your driver will be waiting for you”.

So in an hour and a half we had seen Angkor Wat Temple instead of 3 hours.

A video highlights reel..

When we came out, our driver asked us if we saw abc, xyz etc.. and we were like “Nope”. He skipped those. Later we had to google the Ramayana mural and dasavatar and figured out he had casually shown us some stuff but we did not go around the middle courtyard completely because we avoided a crowd. I was temporarily upset but got back to reality pretty quickly. We saw as much as we could see at that speed.

It was really hot and humid and I was getting a migraine. We really wanted to eat and get back to the hotel for a nap. We had started at 4:30 AM and it was close to Noon. We had walked miles in each temple. So we told our driver to tell his guide friend to do more coverage next time. He realized we were exhausted and suggested we drink some coconut water (we had wanted it the previous day). The coconut water outside the temple in the shacks was delicious and sweet. Next stop was our hotel. We stopped on the way at the market and while our driver waited we went through the market and shopped for T-shirts and linen pants with elephants on them.

We had some leftover from the breakfast that had been packed in the morning before seeing Angkor Wat. So we skipped lunch and took a nap in the hotel. The headache was getting pretty severe and San was tired as well. We rested for almost 3 hours and it was time to visit Siem Reap by ourselves in the evening.. We were to start at 4:30 AM again the next morning!

Kravan temple - a quick stop

The previous post in this series is here..

After going to the tea kadai temple, we were thinking our next stop was going to be Angkor Wat. It was still early morning and given our speed, our driver said we will most likely not need 3-4 hours to see the big temple. So we stopped at one more “must see” temple in this complex. It was a later temple (12th century) compared to the other temples that dated from 950-1100 time frame. It was the Kravan temple,

There were no idols left in the temple. They were all uprooted and taken to France apparently. Only the few murals on the walls remain. They were beautiful.

San almost fell down the steps and that got me worried. We were on day 4 of a 10 day trip and a wedding to attend. There was no room for injuries. There was a pond outside the temple that had violet lotus flowers. Have never seen that anywhere!

A short video highlights reel.

After we walked around this simple temple, we made our way back to the car.. next stop Angkor Wat temple..