Temple Hopping at Angkor Wat

Describing Angkor Wat Archeological Park with words is futile, you are never gonna give the full effect so check out the pictures here and stay tuned for some video evidence of a world wonder in Episode 9.

After wrapping up our time at the orphanage we spent a couple more days visiting the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat. Easily one of the most impressive sets of ruins on the planet, with so much hype we were both expecting to be slightly disappointed.

Our first day started at 5:00AM and after barely dragging my ass out of bed we got to the main temple, Angkor Wat, for sunrise along with 200 other people…a beautiful sunrise packed with tourists, not exactly an ideal start. After the sunrise, most people booked it back to town for breakfast, and Jackie and I had the main temple almost to ourselves! It was awesome, we got to spend time watching the sun come up over the main pillars of Angkor and it was one of those moments that will be burned into my memory forever.

Forever burned into my memory - Sunrise at the Wat!!!

You can easily spend hours looking at each relief in Angkor, but there are so many different temples we had to move on, grab some breakfast and head to our text stop, Ta Prohm.

Tree vs Rock - Whos taking the cake?

Ta Prohm is easily the most attractive set of ruins in Cambodia for one simple reason: it has basically been left untouched since it was built. Although some restoration efforts are currently underway, the evidence of the long fought battle between man made structure and mother nature is still everywhere, and if anyone is keeping tabs, mother nature is kicking ass. Temples built out of stone have been decimated by the root systems of trees and this destruction makes for the coolest environment ever. Bombing around and over fallen stone walls made me feel like Indiana Jones hunting down a mystic treasure! Since we showed up so early, hardly anyone was there so we were once again free to roam without the fear of running into a Chinese tourist group (a very common and easily identifiable occurrence as they wear foam visors and follow their tour leader religiously when he/she blows a whistle and waves a flag).

Jackie Bombing around Ta Prohm, our favourite set of ruins

After ripping around the ruins, we were closely approaching 11:00AM which means it is HOT, we are talking about Cambodian summer which is absolutely insane. When everyone else headed for lunch, we continued to cruise around to other ruins and were rewarded with the lonely experience of wandering the ruins by ourselves.

We were supposed to do sunset at the Kings Pool, but we had to pack it in after a huge storm rolled in, which after almost 12 hours of exploring was a blessing in disguise.

The next day started a little later, but to be honest it didn’t have the same effect as the first day there. Nothing could really live up to day one, and we explored all day, just with a little less vigour.

What else can be said about one of the coolest places on earth? It is the one thing on this trip that has actually lived up to the hype, which is a rarity. If you plan your trip to Angkor right, you can hit up all the hot spots when no one is around. If you are lazy you will be sharing your experience with countless other tourists and touts trying to sell you some shit you don’t want.

We put a little effort in and got an amazing return, and when I go back to Cambodia I will approach the ruins the same way, its gonna be hard to top the first taste of the place, but it will definitely be worth a shot!

We took over 900 Pictures of Angkor Wat and we are still looking through them, stay tuned for the Pictures post when its up!