MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Thailand and Cambodia Trip
Day 5 - December 5 2014
We decided to start today earlier to make sure the temple we were most excited to visit was not too busy. Ta Prohm, the Tomb Raider temple, was incredible. The Banyan trees have taken over much of the temple.
The workers cannot remove the tree as the temple will collapse without them. Next to the famous sites, the workers are rebuilding a huge section of the temple. What time has left of the temples are piles of lava rock and sandstone. They have to piece together what they believe was correct, marking each stone to organize them, then without concrete or a binding agent, build the temple again.
Next stop was The King’s Temple, where the King resided. Next to it are the giant swimming pools built for him. This temple was ours alone to explore. We climbed the very steep steps to the top to get an idea of what his view must’ve been. The walk down was terrifying for me, but worth it.
The Bayon was very large and had many huge carvings of Buddhas face into the pillars. This was a very busy temple, like walking through Disneyland on a weekend. We hurried through it.
Last was Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the temples. We had done research and watched documentaries on the building of it, but the scale of it was simply breathtaking. The walk into the temple was long and hot. Inside, some of the oldest, intact, bas reliefs cover the perimeter. The carvings of war and peace are intricate and must have been incredibly tedious to create.
Mike and I again climb the steep, shaky, wooden steps to reach the top. The views were remarkable. Once we walked down, though, we were soaked through with sweat and tired. We finished by one in the afternoon and began relaxing by the pool again. We took a short nap, then headed out to dinner.
For our last night in Siem Reap, Mike wanted to video the Pub Streets and buy some goods. Not soon after, we grabbed some ice cream cones and headed to the hotel for rest.