The Temples of Angkor can be found in the city of Siem Reap, ancient capital of the Khmer Empire. These temples were built between the 9th to 14th century at a time where the empire was at its golden age. After repeated sacking of Siem Reap by the Thais, the Khmers shifted their capital to Phnom Penh. With that Angkor became a lost city until it was discovered by a French explorer in the 1860s.
The most famous of the Angkor temples is Angkor Wat. It is the biggest and most magnificent. It looks more like a medieval castle then temple. It was built by Suryavarman II (1112 - 1152). It probably acted as both a mausoleum and a temple. It was supposed to blow me away but I find my first experience kind of tame. To be honest, it looked wonderful from far. But when I was inside the temple, I didn't really feel that excited. The number of tourist somehow played a part too.
Besides Angkor Wat, there is also the wall city of Angkor Thom. It was built by Jayavarman VII (1181 - 1200). In its enclosure there are many monuments including the Bayon, Baphuon, Phimeanakas and the Terrance of Elephants. The Bayon was one of the monuments that left the deepest impression in me. The smiling faces on the monument seems to filled the place with warmth. As for the Phimeanakas, I fondly remember it for its steep stairs. If I ever visit it again, I must climb its steps again.
Outside the walls of Angkor Thom, there are many more temples and monuments I visited like my personal favourite of Ta Prohm and others like Phnom Bakheng, Preah Ko, Banteay Srei and Kobal Spien. In my opinion, Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple, was the most inspiring place I visited. It was left just as it was found. Trees could be seen growing out of its walls. Many parts of the temple had collapsed or were near to collapse. This coupled with the fact that there wasn't many visitors during the time I spent there gave me the feeling that I was taken back in time to another world.
As much as I like to witness these magnificent structure, I find it damn tiring and costly to feel like doing it again in the near future. It cost US$40 for foreigner to enter the premises of the Angkor Temples for 3 days. That is quite a bit of money especially if you understand what US$40 can do in this country. Having paid such an amount we have to make the best use of our time there. So it ending up becoming a race against time to catch as many temples as possible. Some temples are just located so far from one another that it sapped my energy by the time I reached my destination. Worse, since it was New Year's Eve, the massive number of tourist kind of destroy the mysteriousness of these temples. In fact it transformed the surrounding into some kind of a Disney Land instead of an ancient ruin.
Angkor Wat
