While Sudip & I were exploring Angkor Wat, the rest of the crew got to sleep in a little bit more and enjoy breakfast at the hotel before our driver picked them up to bring them to us. Thankfully they brought Sudip & I some more breakfast food since the bread and fruit we had at 4am wasn’t going to hold us over.
They picked us up at Angkor Wat, then we headed to Ta Prohm. You can see the major temple comlexes on the map below.
Unlike most of the temples of Angkor, Ta Prohm has been largely left to the clutches of the living jungle. With its dynamic interaction between nature and man-made art, you can't help but feel a little like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft (which was filmed here). Construction began in 1186 AD and had about 80,000 workers on this Buddhist temple.
Ta Prohm is extensively ruined, but you can still explore numerous towers, close courtyards and narrow corridors, discovering hidden gems of stone reliefs beneath the encroaching foliage.
Some as wide as an oak tree, the vines at Ta Prohm cleave massive stones in two and spill over the top of temple ramparts. The effect is striking, especially at the strangulating root formation below where you can’t tell what is stone and what is root.
There are 39 towers at Ta Prohm, which are connected by numerous galleries.
"Tomb Raider tree" in the central sanctuary, where Angelina Jolie picked a jasmine flower and was sucked beneath the earth.
Getting harrassed by Cambodians trying to sell us any and everything. They are definitely ambitious!
Heading to Angkor Thom. The city has 5 monumental gates. Each gate, which leads onto a causeway across the moat, is flanked with statues of 54 gods on the left and 54 demons on the right. The remaining stone monuments testify that Angkor Thom was indeed a "Great City" as its name implies. Upon entering, we saw many amazing temples, terraces and monuments as well as elephant rides and lots of wild monkeys.
I loved watching the monkeys running around and wrestling. Especially entertaining was this little guy swinging on another’s tail and this other drinking from a water bottle.
It was definitely time to cool off! We all had a bit of a water fight, but as hot as Hallie was, she was not impressed!
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