Angkor Thom revisited

Our body clocks woke us up early so it wasn’t a big deal to leave at 0550 for sunrise around 0545. According to an newspaper article I read, Angkor Wat’s west gate is ridiculously overcrowded with people waiting for the sunrise so I took their advice to go to the east gate instead. Instead of seeing the sunrise behind the temple creating a silhouette, we’d get the sunlight illuminating it.

That was the theory anyway. In reality, it was too cloudy and it was a non-event. I guess the other gate would have been no different. We had wasted USD5 for the excursion on the tuktuk but in Cambodia, I always see my expenditure as a donation to the locals and the community.

We had breakfast back at the hotel before hopping back into the tuktuk for the whole day of exploration on the Big Circuit, for which the tuktuk woud cost only USD10 (till 1600).

First stop was Angkor Thom’s Bayon with its many faces.

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Next was Baphuon with its somewhat pyramidal structure and steep steps. The steep steps have now been superimposed with less-steep ones for the safety of visitors. On the back side of the Baphuon the stones appeared unevenly reassembled but upon closer inspection we realised it was the relief of a reclining Buddha.

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Next up (on foot) was the Royal Enclosure which wasn’t of much interest. Moving along on foot again was Terrace of Leper King. This was an awesome maze-wall of beautiful reliefs. The maze took us out to the eateries which was perfect as we needed some sustenance. We opted for a mango shake each and shared a fried noodle.

At Preah Khan, we got dropped off at one gate and walked through the large temple through to the other end where the driver awaited. It was a complex collection of shrines with lingam/yoni setups and richly decorated courtyards.  It has some seriously large tree and root systems growing through some parts of the temple.

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Preah Neak Poan is essentially a water feature. Without water, we took a quick look and moved on to Ta Som which was another large temple which had some bits overtaken by trees with big roots.

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With the heat, Kim had had enough by now so we headed back into town for lunch and called it a day. We cooled off in the hotel’s small pool and rested.

It was also laundry day. A place near the hotel charged $0.80/kg and we had $1.25 worth to do. The hotel charged $1 per shirt!

We had dinner back in the alleyway from last night. It reminded us of another alleyway in Brussels. For dessert, we checked out an extremely trendy cafe a few doors away from the hotel. The decor consisted of old motorbikes and mopeds. It was owned by the Temple group (which owns several hotels). All cakes and pastries are half-price after 6pm so it was $1 per cake and $2 per cuppa.