Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples

We spent the entirety of Tuesday at Angkor Wat, leaving at 5am to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat itself, and then exploring another four temples in the complex over the course of day, before watching the sun set from the top of another temple - unfortunately I have forgotten almost all of their names... They included Bayon and Angkor Thom. We took a tuk tuk around and the breeze between temples was very welcome - it is over 35 degrees at the heat of the day and I feel like I am melting! we also had a very entertaining guide, who spent a fair amount of time telling us ancient contraception stories and his own 'intimate' stories, as well as explaining to Ben how best to pick up Cambodian prostitutes and demonstrating some strange 'dance moves'.... The rest of the time we found him to be very informative and knowledgeable, just with a large dose of bad taste. Luckily, we managed to share him around between four of us, as Ben and I had met up with Tola and Christina for the week.

The sunrise was really nice, but marred only by the several thousand other tourists who had also got up to see it - but for a World Heritage Site that sees over 2 million visitors every year, I guess that's to be expected. We had tea or coffee with condensed milk after sunrise, and eventually got breakfast at about 9am, after having walked around Angkor Wat, and marvelled at the impressive structure and the intricate detail in the bas relief on the internal walls, telling stories of the battle between Cambodia and Thailand in the early 12th century. Siem Riep, the nearest town to Angkor Wat, actually means 'Thailand defeated' with reference to this same battle.

The particularly interesting thing about the temples of Angkor is that they have both Hindu and Buddhist significance, as the king changed from Hinduism to Buddhism, also in the 12th century.

The temples surrounding Angkor Wat cover a huge expanse (it is the largest collection of religious buildings in the world), and so we headed to some more temples on Wednesday (this time in an air-con minivan - bliss!), including Banteray Srei. I found these smaller temples almost more enjoyable than the 'must-sees' of the first day, because each one was slightly different and unique - be it in colour, structure, disrepair or intricacy.

We also saw a fountain and an engraved river bed (at the top of a 2km walk up Kbal Spean in the heat!), which were very different and interesting. The river bed was engraved with 1000 lingas (small round pillars) and several statues of Vishnu and Brahma under water, and it was fun to spot them under the water. We also came across a group of men throwing things at a big green snake up a tree, which was entertaining! However, the promised oasis of a waterfall for cooling off in after the sweaty hike turned out to be shallow, dirty and almost entirely dried up - not to mention directly beneath the above mentioned snake!