Friday 29th and Saturday 30th March
We're now in the Land of Temples and once again find ourselves in a world of extremes. The temples of Angkor are astounding and so very different to anything we've ever seen. We spent the whole of Friday and Sat morning exploring them: Sat afternoon we did something else, but more of that in the next posting. Be prepared, it'll be a rant.
The ruined city of Angkor Thom has a temple at its centre, the Bayon, and is most famous for its towers of the 4 faces.
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| The Royal Barges moored near the entrance to Angkor Thom |
The most famous temple, Angkor Wat, is huge: I think it's best seen from a distance as it lacks the atmosphere of the smaller temples.
It's got an impressive bas relief showing the battles and tribulations of the gods and if pressed I could relate a couple of the major myths, but after hours of the guide telling us about Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and all their various offspring and avatars, a lot of the info evaporated into the 41 degree heat (yes, FORTY ONE according to our tuk-tuk driver). We were quite taken with the carvings of the dancing girls (the Apsara) so our guide suggested we go to see them in the flesh; we spent the evening in a huge restaurant watching dancing girls and boys.
The best temple of all is Ta Prohm, known popularly as the Tree Temple. We've put more photos of this in the next posting.