Cambodia: Getting in touch with the Temples
Asia family Place Timetravelling
Cambodia: Getting in touch with the Temples
Asia family Place Timetravelling

Cambodia: Getting in touch with the Temples

Exploring Cambodia: a 2-week journey to The Temples of Angkor near Siem Reap, followed by the great Tonle Sap lake, and finally the Southern Islands.

This is the first post of a series of three, with fieldnotes from our trip.

Een trip van twee weken naar de tempels en stranden van Cambodia.

The most amazing thing of these jungle temples (besides their sheer numbers and size, their age and archeological significance, their utter beauty and their impressive overall stature) is that you can get all over them, climb and touch them and explore the entire multi square kilometer area whenever you want. In Europe we are used to ‘do not touch’ signs everywhere when visiting  historical sites (and rightfully so!) – not (yet) in Cambodia. I’m wondering for how long.

NEWSFLASH: while writing this I found a ‘Code of Conduct’ movie on the official website of the Angkor Park management, explaining what is and is not allowed (including the touching: NOT ALLOWED!!) :-0

Het is bizar dat je overal mag komen en op mag klimmen in dit ongelofelijke park met honderden tempels van 100 jaar oud. Ik vond trouwens wel onderstaand filmpje dat aangeeft dat bezoekers zich wel dienen te gedragen…

Anyway: of course while behaving as we should, we walked around and spent 3 lovely days in this magical place.

The famous Bayon in the center of the ruined 12-th Century royal city Angkor Thom (
The Phimeanakas, probably the King's palace.
Terrace near Phimeanakas. Encapsulated in the jungle. We could roam around freely.
Baksei Chamkrong, a rarely visited temple, another one of the hundreds of temples and buildings in the area.

Interestingly, Google has mapped the entire area and using google streetview you can explore not only the main roads, but climb and enter most of the buildings as well! So it’s not even needed anymore to take the trouble and going there. Just sit back and enjoy these wonders from home 🙂 – click here for a link to google streetview:

 

Here are some more pictures from our expedition:

The gates of Angkor Thom
Ta Prohm. Even while crowded with visitors, we could still find quit spots in this overgrown temple.
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm
(Chinese?) visitors on top of The Bayon - hard to find a quit place here!
On top of the Bayon, under the highest tower, is this Buddha. To our surprise, we did find the place totally silent and peaceful.
Anothe Buddha statue in The Bayon
Climbing on top of the Baphuon palace
Buddha worshippers in Angkor Wat
Being blessed by a monk in Angkor Wat
An Apsara in one of the tempels
A view in Ta Prohm
An apsara in Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm
Broken Buddha statue in Ta Prohm
The beautiful little red Tenth Century Bantaey Srei (Hindu) temple.
Bantaey Srei, or The Citadel of Women.
Bataey Srei is visited by thousands of people each day. But we were the first visitors this day!
Citadel of Women.

(Camera: Fujifilm X100F with WCL X100ii wide-angle converter)

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