First stop was Angkor Thom. It's the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire, established in the late 12th century by king Jayavarnam VII. At the centre is the Bayon temple, with 37 standing towers, most but not all sporting four carved faces oriented towards the cardinal points. The temple also had many fascinating bas-reliefs (a method of sculpting which entails carving or etching away the surface of a flat piece of stone or metal). The bas-reliefs depict an unusual combination of mythological, historical and mundane events. Some show them going to war, whereas others show daily activities like hunting. 
We visited Ta Prohm, which was intentionally left partially unrestored, with massive fig and silk-cotton trees growing from the towers and corridors offering some of the best "tree-in-temple" photo opportunities, very Tomb Raider. S loved this place, and we took lots of shots with the gigantic tree-trunks and ruined temple buildings.
There are also these interesting temple structures where you could go into, stand in the middle, struck your chest, and the temple would vibrate with the sound, and your troubles are supposed to vanish.
Ta Prohm was dedicated to Jayavarman VII's mother. We also visited Preah Khan (sacred sword), which was dedicated to his father. The interesting thing about Preah Khan is that the door frames got smaller and smaller as you approached the middle, which forces the person approaching the centre to bend lower and lower in humility. S did not heed our guide's warning and bumped his head on the door frame...
Lunch was spent at the fabulous FCC (Foreign Correspondent Club), which was renovated from the old French Governor's mansion. Our guide brought us to the main tourist shopping area, Old Market, to do our tourist shopping but we were bored in less than half an hour. We were supposed to go for a massage, but were both still feeling stuffed from lunch, so decided to drop by the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor for tea. It was built in 1932, and for a long time was the only respectable accommodation for visitors to Angkor Wat. It was reopened in 1997 after a restoration and refurbishment programme. Like the FCC, it had a very nice colonial feel to it... We topped off a colonial afternoon with dinner at the "Only One", the first French restaurant in Siem Reap and still the "only one" with charcuteries from France. It was really quiet (we were the only ones - apparently this is off-tourist season) but ambience was nice. We decided to have an early night to catch the early flight back to Singapore.
Labels: Travelling