Angkor Wat

This is going to be a long post, as this was a very long day of touring the sites at Angkor, and I don't know how to compact what we did into a nice short update. So, if you just want to scroll quickly through the photos that's fine, they start at sunrise and then are basically temple, temple, tree, temple, and finally back at Angkor Wat....
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So to start, we had our wake up call first thing at 05:00 and we were outside of our hotel waiting for our tuk-tuk at 05:30. The streets are relatively quiet this early, with the odd tuk-tuk driving by and slowing to ask if we needed a ride. We'd wave them off since we had a driver coming, but after 15 minutes of waiting we gave up on him and grabbed another driver that, again after some haggling, agreed to drive us out Phnom Bakheng for $4.
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Phnom Bakheng is just about 3/4 of a mile north of Angkor Wat, and according to our guide book, the greatest place to watch the sunset. So great, in fact, that thousands of people crowd the steps most nights; this is why we chose to go to Angkor Wat the previous night for the sunset, although it was still crowded. The books do also recommend Phnom Bakheng for sunrise, and because it is up on a hill we decided it would be a good idea.
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Because of the delay in leaving the hotel the sun was just stating to come up when our driver sped past the main entry to Angkor Wat, but we still were there early enough to enjoy the early morning sky. He dropped us off and told us that he could drive us around all day, no problem we said - we are good with walking, and despite him trying to explain that it's a lot of walking we paid him and sent him on his way. Just to get to the top where Phnom Bakheng is a 15 minute walk that winds up and around the hill, and once there you have to climb up their steep, slippery, uneven steps to the top of the temple. It is worth it.

Phnam Bakheng at sunrise

Angkor Wat as seen from Phnom Bakheng
Tina on the steps of Phnom Bakheng
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There were maybe 50 other people up at the top of Phnom Bakheng when we got up there, we walked around for a while marveling at everything then continued on our tour. Most of the guide books tell you that the place is too big to see everything in one day, and that you really need three just to get a good feel for the place. We looked at their itineraries and they have people visiting 2-3 temples a day; we figured that we wouldn't spend as much time admiring all the reliefs and intricate details and that we could easily breeze through 6-7 in our one day, and besides we were up at the crack of dawn... So starts our marathon sightseeing tour.

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From Phnom Bakheng we walked up to Angkor Thom, this is the site that has the massive entry gates with the large faces looking out in the cardinal directions. Once inside our first stop is Bayon - this temple has a total of 54 towers and 216 faces that are looking out in every direction, supposedly watching over the entire empire.

Gate into Angkor Thom
We didn't feel the need to kiss the faceIn front of one of the towers in Bayon
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From Bayon we walked down the long causeway to Baphoun, then back around the now dried up ponds. We stopped for a quick cheese baguette before walking past the Terrace of Elephants to the Terrace of the Leper King, and then we crossed over to the north Kleang and just wondered about how amazing this all must have been back then.
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We then walked up to Preah Khan, which is just about a mile outside of Angkor Thom. This is one of the largest complexes in Angkor, and is yet another that really can't be adequately described. This is where I started to get confused, as we had read that some of the sites still had the trees growing through the buildings and that in some places they were starting to cut back the jungle and restore the sites. I thought this was one that was still overrun and was disappointed to see only a few giant trees growing through the stones and several places where you could see them cutting out the large trees. We were really only on site three and already was starting to get them confused...
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From Preah Khan, our little map from the hotel showed a quick path that wound through the woods over to Ta Keo, and seeing as we were starting to get tired from the walk and all the steps I convinced Tina that this was a good idea that would save us maybe 30 minutes and about a mile of walking. The path was a little hard to find, but we did find it and followed it around until it came to a small river where there were just two bamboo poles across, one to step on and one to hold. Needless to say we didn't cross there, so we doubled back and then I cut down another side path that should have followed the river. This winds through the woods for 10-15 minutes and we stumble upon a small house where two men are sitting outside - "Cigarette?" one asks, and we say no and continue in the direction I think we need to go, he stops us and points to a trail off to the left. Ah great, we thank him and follow that path until it comes out of the woods just about 20 yards away from where we started...
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Yep that was fun, so we then walked back through Preah Khan to the main road with me knowing that an "I told you so" would be mentioned sometime later in the day. We stopped here for lunch and then started the mile walk back to Ankgor Thom. Luckily here a tuk-tuk drove up to us and asked where we were going, and for only $2 he gave us a ride over the, what turned out to be, almost 4 miles to Ta Keo. He was working for a couple that had hired him for the day and driving to Preah Khan he saw us walking, knowing that they would be touring for at least a half hour he saw us as a quick way to supplement his income; lucky us.
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From Ta Keo we walked down to Ta Prohm - the site that still is somewhat overrun with the jungle. On this walk we passed another couple walking and they asked us "You're walking? We thought we were the only ones." Yeah, now we understood why our morning driver thought we were crazy, and I started to wonder how much it would have cost us to hire him for the day. It seems like it really only would have cost us maybe $15, and in retrospect we (me) are idiots for not just paying.

Tomb Raider Tree in Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

Stepping though a tree at Ta Prohm

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From Ta Prohm we walked over to and through Banteay Kdei, and then we started the long walk down the return road to the back side of Angkor Wat. At this point it's hot out, we are both tired from all of the walking, and with our rough map we really can't tell how far we have to walk. We keep hoping for another tuk-tuk to stop but none show up, and we slowly trudge the 2 miles to the back entrance to Angkor Wat. If we can provide advice to anybody it'll be this - hire a tuk-tuk for the day.
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Back into Angkor Wat we walked around and this time took a stroll through the outer section that has all the relief showing battles and other big events. Turning the corner near the front and suddenly we were confronted with crowds, most of the day there were people around but never huge crowds of hundreds of people, but suddenly here they all were, pushing to get up steps, to see the reliefs, to climb through doorways and take photos. We quickly pushed our way out to the front grounds and enjoyed some more open space...

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

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Back out front we had to find a tuk-tuk without riders, and here they feel they can charge more because they know you're not going to walk back into town. But eventually we found one and headed back after a very full day, it was around 16:30 when we left. Now we understood why the recommended tours only do a few sites, as it is a bit overwhelming and near the end they all do start to blend together.

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Path we walked calculated from Google Pedometer.

One of the things that we did when we got back was to figure out how far we had walked, I had estimated it at maybe 9-10 miles. As you can see from the above map, the total path was just over 17 miles and all but 4 miles of that was walked by us. If you click on the link in the photo title you can zoom in on our actual path and see some nice satellite views of Angkor.
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Back in Siem Reap we relaxed with a nice Indian dinner and then another night where we were early to bed.