The Temples of Angkor

I had the most incredible day exploring the Temples of Angkor. I took a photography lesson with a photojournalist who lives in Siem Reap but works in war zones (he had just returned from Syria). It was brilliant to find out how my camera works, but more importantly he took us off the beaten track, visiting some temples where we were the only people there and even in the major temples he knew how to avoid the crowds and find the secret photo opportunities.

He took us to ten different temples through the day, and I apologise as I don't remember all of the names and do not know all of the history, but each was stunning in its own way. The temples were built by the Khmer Kings from ~800AD to ~1400AD, when the Khmer Empire was at its greatest - the equivalent of the Roman Empire, but in South East Asia. The temples were built as Hindu Temples, but converted to the Khmer version of Buddhist temples later. The Thais eventually overturned the city at Angkor in the 1400s and the temples were left to the monks and the elements. The temples weren't "discovered" by Europeans until the French found them in the 1860s, but with the civil wars through Cambodia through the 20th century the real work on the archeology and restoration of the area was stopped and started several times. 

There are hundreds of temples in the Angkor area, as Kings would build  temples as majestic homes and monuments for the royal court of the time, but also built other temples to honour their parents, grandparents and anyone else they felt deserved a temple. There are many temples yet to be explored, although the danger of land mines in the area is still a real threat.

The day started before dawn at Angkor Wat, which is known as the biggest religious building in the world. It was built in the early 1100s and it is known as heaven on earth. I can see why.

The beautiful reliefs run around the inside of the building for over 1km and tell many stories.

Apparently over 300,000 men and 6,000 elephants were used in its construction.

I don't know the names of the next few temples, but here are some of the images I took.

These carvings were chiselled into the curving brickwork, it was stunning.

This temple had not had any restoration work completed yet.

However they are doing a fantastic job of the restoration, painfully sorting and numbering the rubble, before reinstating the blocks of stone using the same methods where possible to keep authenticity (they are allowed to use cranes though instead of elephants).

This is Ta Prohm, made famous in Tomb Raider.

There were lots of other beautiful carvings and examples of the jungle taking over at other temples too:

I got wet feet a lot during the day!

I had to crawl into a tiny (very humid) space to find this lady, but she was worth it. Her red lipstick was applied by the Khmer Rouge during the civil war as a sign of disrespect.

The final temple complex was Angkor Thom, which is the biggest and greatest set of temples in the area. In fact the city measures over 10 square kilometres and had a population of over one million at its  height. The main temple is Bayon, which had 54 towers, each with four giant smiling faces at the top - it was out of this world.

The Temples of Angkor were meant to be the highlight of my trip and they certainly did not disappoint.