Cambodia - Siem Reap

In the region of Siem Reap there are 91 temples, so after another early start we went to visit a few more of them today. The history of this country is interesting as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were all one country made up of 54 provinces. Therefore many of the temples have 54 steps to represent these provinces. Siem Reap used to be the capital of Cambodia, but in 1432 the king moved the capital to Phnom Penh as this area is very dry so it was unsuitable for agriculture, and due to the threats from Siam (now Thailand) they needed good crops for money to fight these wars. It seems Thailand was always bothersome as in 1863 the king requested protection from France, which is when Cambodia fell under the French. It was the French who cleared the jungle in this area and discovered these hidden temples, which were mainly built in the 12th century but had been overrun by nature when the capital was moved away.

We collected bikes and our guide took us on a cycle tour around the temples today. We concentrated on the temples in the Angkor Thom area, which was the capital of the Khmer empire in the 12th century, and is a walled city of 3km by 3km and contains many of the well known temples. Our cycle ride took us on a hardened cycle path through the jungle, and also on some smaller sandy tracks that were tricky to cycle on. I was very grateful to Princess Diana for all her work here clearing the landmines, as when I was cycling in the jungle part of our route today I did think about the landmines!

Our first stop was Ta Prohm temple, also known as the ’Tomb Raider Temple’ as it was used as a location in the film Lara Croft : Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie (and the staff tell me she stayed at our hotel). After it was abandoned the jungle took over and there are trees growing through the loosened stones, as can be seen here. It was definitely my favourite temple, I could have spent hours there.

Then we cycled further to Ta Keo temple, built in the 10th century but which was never completed as they were worried about the height of it being a lightning risk.

We cycled through Victory Gate to visit The Terrace of the Elephants, which was a stadium where the king would watch people playing sport - the carvings show sports like kick boxing, horse riding, and wrestling. The king had his royal residence there which no longer exists but Phimeanakas Temple is still standing. This was a Hindu temple - all the temples in Siem Reap are both Hindu and Buddhist because if they were built for one religion they were later converted to the other. The king also had an enormous swimming pool which still exists today.

Next stop was Baphuon Temple which had many baboons running around. After viewing the temple we returned to our bikes to find that the baboons were all over them and a baby was chewing our handle bars! Later I saw one biting into a man's trousers, he was lucky not to get bitten.

The final stop was Bayon Temple, which is a beautiful temple with many faces carved into it. The carvings on the walls tell many stories which are very easy to understand by the images, about the wars and celebrations. There was a young couple having a pre-wedding photo shoot there - it is common practice to have a pre-wedding shoot which is then shown at the wedding on a screen, and some even set up a website and send the link to guests as part of the wedding invitation. In extras I have some images of the temples and I have included one of another couple who rented Khmer outfits and then organised a photo shoot of them dressed up!

At the end of our cycle we went to a restaurant called Sala Kdei where we had a foot massage, followed by lunch. I was dreading the foot massage as I thought it would be painful like last time but actually it was wonderfully relaxing and I almost fell asleep! The Khmer lunch was superb, a selection of all the traditional dishes, and after our cycle ride of 21km we enjoyed that lunch!

When we got back to the hotel we went to the pool where I did some lengths for about 30 minutes - it was a good way to ease my legs after that cycle ride. 

Tomorrow we leave this beautiful hotel and lovely Cambodia and fly to Ho Chi Minh City (which the locals still refer to as Saigon) - our holiday is sadly drawing to an end.