25th – 28th September 2014

This, unfortunately  will not be the post I had hoped it would be.  This is the only section of photos that I didn’t get many back from, and probably the one I wanted most.  However, I will always have the experience with me, and maybe one day I’ll get to go back there.

I had managed to already back up the Angkor Wat sunrise photos as they were separate from the others.  We got up at silly o’clock to watch the sun rise with Angkor Wat as the backdrop.  It was absolutely beautiful.   And as expected I took hundreds of pics as the sun came up!

We hired a tuk tuk driver called Rohan, a really sweet guy who went out of his way for us.  He even drove me back on a 45 minute round trip so I could get my camera powerpack (the sunrise pics drained most of it out!) We visited several of the temples, and they were absolutely amazing.  Each one a little different.  A lot of them were very tall, and you were able to climb right to the top of most of them, on the huge blocks they were built with, doing this in the 35º heat was exhausting!  By far one of my favourite experiences so far.  Some temples are fairly intact, where others are partly ruins, but the ruined ones had more character and it just made them more interesting.  I loved exploring the alleyways and courtyards and getting lost in the labyrinth of beautiful stone work, or I’d be picking my way through a crumbled mess of fallen stones, and the time passed over the years had covered them in green moss.  I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones film!  It was truly an experience I’ll never forget.

The second day I went on my own as Laura was all ‘templed out’, but I wanted to see more.  On this trip we went to some temples that were further away, and so had less people in them.  In one of them I had the entire temple to myself, and as I wandered through the maze of stonework, thunder started to rumble in the background, and it just made the experience so atmospheric it was unbelievable.  Then, out of nowhere, a little cat appeared and ran over to me, it was just perfect.  By a great stroke of luck, I have this ONE photo of the cat.

We also visited the temple that is famous for being used in the Tombraider films.  This was one of the most amazing temples, for what had been built hundreds of years ago, nature was now reclaiming.  Huge trees have grown out of the temple grounds, and the results are fantastic.  Unfortunately not many photos of this were saved, but I have a couple here.

A list of all the temples I visited, with a photo of each (some from the internet for reference due to me having no, or not many pictures of these temples at all!)

Bayon (internet)

Ta Phrom (internet)

Angkor Wat (mine)

Banteay Srei (internet)

Banteay Samre (mine)

Neak Pean (internet)

East Mebon (internet)

Prasat Prei (internet)

Writing this post has really brought back how many great photos I lost from these two days.  There are so many missing.  I know I have the memories in my head, but anyone who knows me knows my memory is pretty crap!  That’s probably why I take so many photos. The thing is, I hadn’t even looked through the photos I had taken!  Never mind, plenty more memories to be made and forgotten again ha ha 🙂