Amazing Angkor Wat

January 19^th, 2025

When in Cambodia, it seems almost mandatory to visit Angkor Wat…I mean, it’s on their flag!  It is only one of a number of temples in the area around Siem Reap, but obviously the most famous one.  Spreading over 162 hectares, it is considered the world’s largest religious structure.  It was built around the year 1150 and was originally a Hindu temple dedicated to the deity Vishnu but was later transformed to a Buddhist temple.  It is enclosed by a 3.6-kilometre long outer wall in a square shape with a 190 meter wide moat going around the perimeter.  It is massive!

 

Researching online as well as speaking to other travellers and the hotel staff, it seemed like the thing to do was to be there to watch sunrise.  So, after the long day on the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap, I reluctantly set my alarm for 4:30 am.  Sunrise wasn’t until 6:30, but the gates open at 5 am and it was recommended to go early to ensure you can find a good spot to watch Mother Nature’s event.

 

Simon, my tuk tuk driver from yesterday, picked me up at 5 am and it was interesting to see that even though it was still dark outside, the city was starting to come alive with tourists boarding buses, taxis and tuk tuks to do exactly what I was doing.  Simon dropped me off at the gate and after my ticket was checked, I walked along a road for about 400 meters to arrive at the perimeter of the moat.  A blog written by a tourist recommended watching the sunrise from this area, on the west side of the moat so that you would get a reflection of the temple buildings on the water.

Finally starting to see some light...

There was already a flurry of activity happening with a generator powering some big floodlights and rows and rows of chairs symmetrically lined up on the main stone bridge that crosses the moat to the main entrance.  I don’t believe this was a daily thing, but a special event for the locals, mainly school children, even though it was a Sunday.

I found a spot on the north side of that bridge where I thought the best view would be and although there were other tourists already there, there were lots of spots to sit on the thick wall of stones that lined the moat.  The wall was at a perfect height for sitting comfortably with your feet on the ground.  I realized that I probably could have slept in half an hour later and still found this spot, but better safe than sorry.

That's getting better.

The main complex of the temple framed by trees.

A panoramic shot.

Tree issues with sunrise.

As dawn began to break, groups of children took turns singing on the stage at the near end of the bridge.  It definitely added to the atmosphere, good and bad, but did make it feel like a more Cambodian event.  Depending where I was standing, there was an echo of the music from the walls on the other side of the moat…which at times made the music sound even stranger.

Some interesting live music at this time of day.

My thoughts of the singing...

What a sight!

Sunrise was gorgeous, and I was super happy that I had made the effort to get up to witness it at this auspicious spot.

Sunrise finally happening.

Yay, the sun!

Once the sun was up, I ambled across a floating bridge that ran parallel to the main stone bridge where the hundreds of school children were still seated.

The floating bridge for tourists to get to the main area.

When I arrived earlier in the morning, I had a number of guides, in their official yellow boy scout looking shirts, ask me if I wanted to employ their services, but I declined.  This kind of history, old stone temples that are falling apart from a thousand years ago, is just not my bag.  I’ve heard of people spending 3-4 days touring around the various temples surrounding Siem Reap, but I knew that a one-day ticket would be plenty, in fact, I might barely make it until lunchtime!

I stole this photo from Wikipedia to give you an idea of the scale of Angkor Wat and so you have a rough idea of what I did.  You can see the stone bridge on the middle left side of the picture, crossing the moat.  That's where I watched the sunrise (east is the bottom right part of the square moat).  The light green area in the center square is where I walked up to the main temple in the center...and then back again.

So I walked in through the main gate, along the pathway to the main temple, explored around, climbed up the main tower area, and then headed back to the main gate.  It was impressive for sure…I’ll let the photos and videos try to convince you of that.  Sadly, this place became a ruin hundreds of years ago, from possibly a combination of reasons:  drought, an economic shift towards coastal ports and/or overpopulation and deforestation.  All good things come to an end…

The main gates.

The Cambodian National Anthem at 7 am (they played it in Battambang at that time too).

Those are lines of hundreds of school children on the main bridge.  I'm not sure what the event was about.

Entering through the main gate.

The view from the other side.

There were two of these builiding on either side of the footpath to the main part of the temple.  I didn't bother checking them out.

Heading towards the central structure.

There were main long hallways in Angkor Wat.

Walking around one of the inner courtyards.

Getting closer...

Those are steep steps, that you are not allowed to climb up...but there was another tower with a modern staircase you could climb to visit the main temple area.

It was quite steep.

Looking out from the top of the steps.

The east gate of the inner temple.

    

The center tower.

It was a nice view from the top.  Way in the distance is the west gate.

Zooming in on the west gate.

There was an awful lot of carvings on the walls.

This looked odd to my engineering mind...the column seemed to be doing next to nothing.

The outer courtyard of the inner temple...if that makes sense.

Looking back at the three central towers.

The east gate.

Another looonnng hallway.

A snake tug-of-war.

On the left wall are carvings that go the full length of it.

A 94-meter long carving. 

Starting to head back to the west gate.

Looking back at the main towers.

This is looking back from near the gate where I started in the morning...in the dark.

I think this was a quiz for the students as they looked to be writing answers down.

Meeting up with Simon at the main gate around 9:30 am, we headed towards Bayon Temple which was built a little later than Angkor Wat, in the late 12^th or early 13^th century.  One of its distinctive features are the big smiling stone faces of Brahma on the sides of the towers of the main complex and on the gates.  They did look cool…what was left of them.  Like Angkor Wat, there’s a big square moat surrounding the area, even bigger than the one around Angkor, but the main temple complex didn’t take that long to walk around.

Off to Bayon Temple.

Driving through the main gate.

The main part of Bayon Temple.

Monkeys playing at the temple.

A lot of the temple has crumbled over time.

But some carvings have survived.

I'm working on my photography skills...trying to frame pictures and lead the viewer's eyes as Naomi told me.

Maybe you can make out the big faces on each side of the tower. 

Walking around inside.

A monkey having a good time with a tarp.

The sun hiding behind the tower.

As I neared my circumnavigation of the temple, I noticed a bearded foreigner walk up to a monkey who was sitting on a stone ledge about 5 feet high.  He tapped his shoulder with his opposite hand and coaxed the monkey to climb into his arms, which shockingly the monkey immediately did.  I watched incredulously for a few minutes as the guy spoke to a local man who had been walking around with him and they obviously knew each other.  A female tourist also noticed this spectacle and asked if she could pet the monkey, which the man said “Sure”, so she did.

The vet with the lonely monkey.

I struck up a conversation with the man and he was actually a vet who has worked with monkeys in Brazil.  The local man then explained that some local families have these monkeys as pets but when they get older and bigger, they bring them to the temple and abandon them and get new, younger monkeys for their home.  I asked him why, and Google Translate helped him to convey the message that “It’s their belief”.  I wasn’t sure what exactly that belief was as it seemed so sad.  This human habituated monkey could not interact with the wild monkeys as fights would break out.  So this poor little guy has no friends and he was just looking for some lovin’.  I couldn’t help but feel sorry for this monkey.

Would you like to touch my monkey?

They sure loaded up this tuk tuk.

Yet another gate.

The last of the three main temples that most tourists visit in Siem Reap is Ta Prohm.  This place was made famous by Angelina Jolie in the movie “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” in 2001.  I’m not even sure if I’ve seen the movie, maybe bits of it.  A lot of the temple has fallen apart but there have been some amazing restoration projects to reconstruct sections of it.  What a task.  It’s got to be one of the hardest puzzles to figure out.

I heard this music being played, and have to admit, at first I didn't think it was very good.  But then did I feel a bit bad as I got closer to the small stage.  These guys are survivors from explosions from "bombies", small cluster bombs that were dropped in the millions over Laos by the American government to try and eradicate the Ho Chi Minh Trail which was supplying weapons to the Viet Cong.  These poor men have lost a leg or an arm to undetonated cluster bombs which is still a problem in this country today.

Entering the Ta Prohm temple.

A lot of this temple has fallen apart over time, but some of it has been painstakingly rebuilt.

It was amazing to see how nature is trying to reclaim the area.  Massive trees with crazy trunks splayed over the walls of the temples seem to be thriving and almost engulfing the temple.  It’s only a matter of time…and as my Indian friend Raj told me, “Time takes no holiday”.

This temple is famous for the fact that the trees are taking over...growing over stone walls.

This selfie doesn't do it justice, but this silk cotton tree has very wide bits of its trunk splaying out, about 4-5 feet wide at the base.

The amazing restoration work on parts of the temple.

No wonder they filmed "Tomb Raider" with Lara Croft here.

Crazy trees.

What a place.

How do these trees do it?!?

Like giant tentacles swallowing up the temple...

That's a strangler fig tree that does exactly as it's name suggests.  It grows around another tree and sometimes ends up killing the "host tree".  I climbed up the inside of a huge one in Costa Rica, check this blog post from 2015.

A quick view of a lake to finish the tour.

Okay, I was “templed out”…and sadly it was only 11 am.  Technically I put in a 6-hour shift, and I was happy to have made the effort to see sunrise at Angkor Wat.  The other two temples were great to visit too…but let’s just put a checkmark on that bucket list item!