Cambodia: Feb 16: Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom

To get to Cambodia from Singapore, we awoke at 4:15am to get to the airport for our god-awful-early 6:00am flight to Siem Reap. We had a night-time stroll through Changi Airport's small cactus garden. (Yes, Changi has a cactus garden along with, according to the airport guide, other gardens and additional diversions such as art exhibits.)

Our flight to Siem Reap was uneventful. Upon landing, though, we couldn't find our tour guide! Di Yin took control, borrowed a cell phone, made some calls, and he soon showed. Apparently he'd been having digestive problems for the last few days after drinking too much at a lunar new year party.

He and the driver brought us to our hotel, the Angkor Home Hotel, where we checked in and had a breather before heading out again. The hotel was nice, and our suite especially snazzy. It's at this point that I began taking pictures.

Incidentally, Di Yin also took many pictures this day. The link goes to the first picture from this day (picture #98) in her album from our trip to Singapore and Cambodia. When you see a picture of me lying in bed (picture #232), you're done with her pictures from the day. I'll link to the rest in later posts.

When we headed out, we went straight to the Angkor Archaeological Park, got photographed and received our three-day passes (which had our pictures on them), and began exploring Angkor Wat. After exploring Angkor Wat, both its outer and inner temples, our guide brought us to an adjacent monastery to look around. Then it was lunchtime, and our guide dropped us off at our arranged lunch spot, a restaurant literally across from the street from Angkor Wat's moat. Our lunch was good. I thought we chose dishes well, but as it turns out my happiness was just the first sign that we generally like Cambodian food.

After lunch, we drove a little farther north to the south gate of Angkor Thom. The driver dropped us off and we walked across the bridge and through the gate and got picked up on the other side. hehe. Though I laugh, I admit that this method of seeing the moat and gate was much better than, say, stopping the car, looking around, taking pictures, and getting right back in.

We continued north to Bayon, the temple in the center of Angkor Thom. I enjoyed Bayon more than Angkor Wat because Bayon is smaller, more compact, and therefore more dense, more intense. Of course, this impression may be simply because we ignored the surrounding temples within Angkor Thom, saving them for another day, whereas we walked through most of the temples in the Angkor Wat complex.

Bayon is noteworthy for its two hundred (or so) Buddha faces carved into the several dozen towers in the temple, often four faces per tower with one facing in each direction. It's remarkable--everywhere you looked, you saw these faces gazing down on you. These faces are the thing I most remember from this trip to Cambodia. Although I took many pictures this day, I nevertheless wish I took more here. I didn't take many, and those I did often didn't come out as well as I hoped.

We left Angkor Park and thus ended our exploration for the day. Yes, irritatingly, our tour guide dropped us off at our hotel at 3:30pm. I wanted to explore more! But, as I lay in bed, relaxing, and then went swimming (our hotel has a pool), I got more comfortable with the idea. Besides, I couldn't ask someone who has to do this job day in day out to mirror my intense exploration days. Also, our tour guide was feeling sick from something he ate.

Our dinner voucher was for the restaurant next door to our hotel. The restaurant was empty when we arrived and only welcomed one other couple during the time we were there. Nevertheless, the food was decent all around.