Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, Cambodia

Angkor is amazing. The scale and complexity of the temples built nearly a thousand years ago is stunning. Nothing compares to these structures. As the tuk tuk drove closer and the track to Angkor Wat was in sight I felt a sense of excitment and suspense as to what I was about to see, and felt really excited when I recognised the silouette of these famous structures from pictures I had seen.

I have been reading about Angkor for months and it felt quite surreal to begin with, being in Cambodia and seeing it with my own eyes. I instantly loved Angkor Wat, which reminded me of a lavish castle, except on a much bigger scale, and in a very different style to anything I had seen in Europe.

Angkor Wat is beautiful and very complex, with several layers of dark stone monuments before accessing the central part, combining the outer and inner walls with the main temple, which included its own courtyards and corridors. It took around ten minutes to walk from one side to the other, through the middle of the temple (1 km), although I spent several hours exploring every corridor and pathway. I even came across a monk who was my age and asked me where I was from and that sort of thing.

By late morning we were both hungry and our tuk tuk driver dropped us back at the guesthouse for lunch. We were glad to rest for a while as it must have been at least 30 degrees today and was really sunny up until midday. Thankfully the only part of me that’s burnt is a small strip where my mosquito wristband was, as I didn’t put sunscreen there, but nothing too bad. We enjoyed a nice noodle and chicken lunch.

After lunch we were going to have a balloon ride over Angkor Wat but it was too cloudy.

Our next destination was Ta Prohm, a temple filmed in Tomb Raider, famous for its intricate stone monuments build in 1186 and forgotten about. The area is covered by jungle where many of the temples are swallowed by tree roots and the stone carvings are so old looking. Just to see the way nature has taken over, I found Ta Prohm equally as impressive as Angkor Wat as it felt so abandoned and I felt like an explorer, viewing something lost for such a long time.

We’ve both decided that we like it here so much, that we will stay an extra day and return to Bangkok on the day of our train to Krabi as opposed to the day before. This means spending New Years Eve in Siem Reap, which is definately a good thing. I feel happy about an extra day here. It’s a really nice place, a lot more relaxing than Thailand. I’m enjoying it.