| It's a beautiful sunny morning and I am so excited. To save money, we plan
not to buy food inside the Angkor Archaeology Park because we heard that it's quite
expensive. There for we bought some bread and banana for lunch and plenty of drinking
water. 9am our motorbike drivers are here. First thing to do is to buy a ticket from the
Angkor ticket booth. We bought 3 days ticket for US$40. You need to show this ticket to
the guard before you go in the temple. It's important to keep it safely with you always. I was amazed to see Angkor Wat
for the first time, it was so big and grand. It's one of the seven wonders of the world
and I am actually here to see it myself! Our motor driver suggest that we go to other
temples first then come back to Angkor in the evening. There are about 40 temples inside
this park. We visited 10 temples on our first day here. We went to:
- Bayon
- Baphoun
- Royal Bath
- Terrace of the Leper
King
- Terrace of the Elephant
- Ta Prohm
- Ta Keo
- Banteay Kdei
- Srah Srang
- Angkor Wat
My favorite temple is
Bayon, I like the smiling faces of the Bayon. Most of the temples here are almost
destroyed or collapsed. Restoration is still going on by UNESCO and the Japanese, France
government. It's a tedious job. I notice that some of the restoration and conservation
work done is so real, example the bas-relief (carving on the wall). You have to observe
carefully because it looks almost the same as the original carving. The three of us have
tough time figure out which one is the real thing. However some are easily to sport
because they are made of cement.
Baphoun was under
restoration until year 2004, we are not allow to enter so we find a place to rest. We have
lunch beside the Royal Bath, it's an ancient swimming pool. It was indeed relaxing to deep
your feet inside the water and watch the local children swimming inside the pool. The pool
water supply depends on rain water, and due to the raining season, the pool is fill with
water.
There are children
following you around in some temple, they will tell you story and history of the temple,
and at the end of the tour, you need to pay them for their tour guide service. If you
don't want this to happen, you have to ask them to stop at the beginning, or else you will
be in deep trouble! I ended up paying 10 Thai Baht because of this, but the kid is quite
good story teller.
It started to rain very
heavy when we are on our way to Angkor Wat. I enter Angkor Wat for the first time soaking
wet and cold! But still feel happy about. Kriss and Lisa manage to change into dry
clothes at the temple without a toilet. It was dark and wet inside Angkor temple because
of the rain. We are coming back again the next day to get a better look at this temple.
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