ANGKOR (Siem Reap) - 27th Jan. 2015 to 2nd Feb. 2015

The temples of the Angkor archaeological site in Siem Reap is the most important sight to visit in Cambodia. It is a complex of buildings, which corresponded to the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire, between the 9^th and the 14^th centuries. The city had on its best times almost one million inhabitants.

To visit the area we shared tuc-tuc with Lyne and Lindsey, two Canadian girls. One of them, is the one we met on the bus crossing from Thailand to Cambodia, in the previous post.

• ANGKOR  WAT

This building is the largest and most important temple in Angkor. This is a good place to watch the sunrise and sunset.

.

• BAYON

The temple of a thousand faces, is second in importance, and although it doesn't appear so nice from far, once you get closer you can see how amazing it is.

.

• TA  PROHM

During the last centuries, the trees have emerged as new owners of many temples. Nowadays we can see an interesting coexistence between rocks and roots. In this temple was filmed part of the movie Tomb Raider. It is one of the most visited temples, after Angkor Wat and Bayon.

.

• PRASAT  KRAVAN

There are several smaller, and not tourist temples like this, which you can visit alone, without no other tourists.

.

• PRE  RUP

.

• PRASAT  TA  SOM

.

• NEAK  POAN

.

• PREAH  KHAN

We liked a lot this temple. It is a bit like Ta Prohm, but not so crowded and touristic, and much bigger.

• THOMMANOM

.

• sunset at  PHNOM  BAKHENG

This is one of the places, recommended to see the sunset. And as such, it is very crowded. We were quite disappointed with the sunset from there.

.

• BANTEAY  SREI

This temple and the following two, are a bit far away from the other temples. To go there, we spent a whole day with the tuc‑tuc. Despite being far away, we consider that Bantea Srei is definitely worth to visit.

.

• KBAL  SPEAN

It is not really a temple, it consists of a series of stone carvings in the river bed and banks. To get there, you have to hike up the mountain for about 30 minutes.

.

• BENG  MEALEA

This temple has been left more or less in the state it was found. In fact, all the temples of Angkor were so, before they got tidied up.

.

• SIEM REAP

The city of Siem Reap, located about 8 km south of Angkor Wat, is not specially interesting, rather than serving as a base for visiting the archaeological site of the temples of Angkor. Here you can visit the market, a some temple, see a lot of tuc‑tuc drivers, waiting for customers, food stalls and trees in flower.

.

To continue our journey, we took the night bus with bunks to Sihanoukville, where we would take the ferry to Koh Rong island. It was the first time we had such a kind of bus.

.