Angkor WHAT!

WHAT indeed! What an amazing place this is. Firstly, it's huge! So much bigger than I had anticipated, not surprising as it's one of the biggest religious monuments in the world measuring around 402 acres. Angkor Wat used to be the old capital city many centuries ago and it's now a large temple complex, one of the seven new wonders of the world that consists of many different temples in different styles. It was originally constructed as a Hindu temple for the God Vishnu for the Khmer Empire but in the 12th Century transformed into a Buddhist temple.

I spent two days visiting the site which is about 3 miles north of Siem Reap, but you could easily spend a week here. I did the main temples but everywhere you go, there are smaller ones. You need to get a minibus or tuk tuk between them as the distance is pretty huge. At sunset, we walked to one of the temples, climbed the stairs to the top and sat while the sun came down. I got some good shots but whilst this is a good place to go, it's mainly forest, the sun doesn't set behind the temples as such. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a lake and got the last bits of the sunset with some amazing colours reflecting off the water.

However, the next day, some of us got up early to do the sunrise at the main Angkor Wat temple.....at 4am! The sunrise was around 5.15/5.30am and whilst we did see the sun glowing bright orange, it wasn't until we were leaving. Again I got some good shots, but it was more of a case of it just getting lighter with some nice purple/orange colours than the classic sun rising over the temple picture. Such a shame as I was hoping it would that day!

The highlight was really day two when I did the main Angkor Wat temple, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and the Bayan Temple. All three are really impressive and so different. Ta Prohm was the location for the Tomb Raider films and is known locally as the Angelina Jolie temple! The main temple, Angkor Wat really is pretty big itself. I walked around and climbed the steep steps to the top where the view is incredible. I witnessed a monk giving blessings and a couple I was travelling with had their wedding vows renewed which was lovely. Angkor Wat I would say is more grand compared to the others. Angkor Thom and Bayon were my favourite as I felt it had the most character and really something out of a movie set, a mixture of Tetris blocks and Buddha's heads carved into the stone. It was a great place to explore with lots of alleyways, tunnels and corridors. Ta Prohm is equally impressive with huge trees that have literally grown in and around the temple, their trunks and vines intertwined throughout.

I've seen a lot of temples on my travels but Angkor Wat is by far the most impressive.