Angkor Wat (Day 2)

My second day started a lot more relaxed than my first. I had breakfast at my guesthouse and had a coffee in the morning. Therefore a 7:30 pickup was quite alright. We wouldn’t be the masses but there weren’t masses expected anyway. It was monsoon season after all.

Today we had the big round planned and it was called thus because the temples are a bit further apart. The first one for today was Preah Khan. The temple had its own driveway leading up to it, beautifully lined with statues left and right.

I have noticed that I was taking quite a lot of pictures at the first temple. Something that had to change when going to the second one which was to be Neak Pean. To get there I had to walk over a long wood boardwalk and the temple itself couldn’t be visited, not even surrounded. You could just walk a bit to the left and the right of it.

The whole temple tour might sound rather boring but it was not. At every temple I had to fight off legions of vendors with pants, scarves, books, postcards, paintings etc. and more often than not I lost. I just bought something to be left alone for a while. The temple though were wonderful if not a bit much after a time. Temple number three for the day was Ta Som.

  
Number four was Eastern Mebon. I can’t really say much to the temples, I bought a book about them though and will read up later. Most of them were from the 10-12th century and looked quite similar or so it started to feel by then. It was definitely hotter than the day before because we started later. And my attention span was after one and a half days on half mast. 
  

After the fourth temple one I had a short coffee break before going to Pr. Prerup. Here I also saw a huge black and white spider which made an interesting web.

        
  
By now it was noon and I was exhausted again from the heat and the constant walking up and down. But the day was far from over because now we cam to the most famous of landmarks, Angkor Wat. Maybe it was the heat or the lateness of seeing it after all the other temples, but Angkor Wat didn’t impress me that much. It was probably best renovated compared to the other temples and it had beautiful Bas Relief Galleries but that’s about it. Of course it was built surrounded by water but still, there were others more impressive. To get to it I had to cross a long paved walk which was guarded at the beginning by seven-headed snakes and lions on each side.

  
Once I exited the first building I saw that another paved road lay ahead. Actually make that a huge park like area with ‘libraries’ left and right and still far ahead the main building structure.

The rest of the buildings was sparse, especially compared to the reliefs which were mind-blowing all things considered. So maybe I judged to harsh. Looking at the pictures now makes me see Angkor Wat in a different light. It was impressive after all. Here some more pictures from inside.

  
  

And that was it for the day then. When I walked back to Mara and his tuk-tuk I saw a horse, a rare sight so far on this trip.

The rest of the afternoon was spent napping and swimming. For dinner I didn’t even make it as far as the main street but stayed close to the hotel. I met some cows on the road and had another boring dinner although the fresh green pepper was very tasty. It didn’t matter since I was bone tired and ready to call it a night. Yours, Pollybert