Angkor Thom ( 5th Feb 2006 )

This is my 2nd day at Siem Reap. Our itinerary starts with the sunrise at Angkor Wat. The taxi picked us up at guesthouse at 0500 and reached Angkor Wat at 0530. It was still very dark, we have to use the torchlight. However, we are not alone, there are already many tourists at Angkor when we reached. The sun rises, with Angkor Wat as the background, the sunrise become remarkable. There are 2 ponds in front of Angkor Wat. It's the popular place for photos shooting as the temple will reflected in the water.

After the sunrise, we headed out to the grand city, built by Jayavarman VII, called Angkor Thom. Today, our main focus will be the temples in Angkor Thom. We entered the ancient city from the South Gate of Angkor Thom. The taxi driver dropped us in front of Bayon temple and told us to find him at shop nearby once we finished visit all the temples around.

Bayon - according to the book, it's located at the central of Angkor Thom. My first impression of bayon is towers. There are a lot of towers with four faces in the four cardinal points. The faces are with closed eyes and smile. We took sometime to look at the galleries with their many bas-reliefs depicting scenes of everyday life as well as great battles and military processions.

We proceed to visit Baphoun, Royal Enclosure & Phimeanakas, Preah Palilay, Tep Pranam, Preah Pithu Group, Leper King Terrace and Elephant Terrace, Kleangs & 12 towers of Prasat. Those temples are located not far away from each other, within walking distance. However, it still made us tired because of the hot weather. We took the lunch at the shop nearby Preah Pithu Group. Normal fried rice cost USD 2 . It was not good and expensive.

We would like to go back to guesthouse for a couple of hours rest and come out again later. But the taxi driver refused. He told us that the USD 20 per day only includes the tour around Angkor Thom and fetching us back to guesthouse. Additional charges need to be paid if we would like to go back for rest and come out again. We don't want to spend extra money, so rest under the tree for an hour. Then proceed to our next destination.

In the afternoon, we visited Chau Say Tevoda, Thommanon,Ta Keo, Ta Prohm. Chau Say Tevoda - Under restoration, sponsored by government of China.
Thommanon - Small temple opposite Chau Say Tevoda.
Ta Keo - Quite steep and high staircase. Climb up the staircase is quite torturing under the hot sun.
Ta Prohm - Ruins in the jungle. The huge tree and the temple are emerged.

We continues east to Banteay Kdei. Banteay Kdei is stone's throw away from Ta Prohm and opposite to Sras Srang. Took quite some pictures on the wall craving

We had seen many temples today. Tired and hungry. So, we didn't have mood to visit Banteay Kdei in detail.

After Banteay Kdei, we travelled back to the Siem Reap town, stopped at Moroppor Cafe to have the dinner. We had dinner at this cafe almost everyday. The food is good, cheap and the environment is good. I strongly recommended the honey lemon shake :)