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Siem Reap

We took a long weekend and visited Siem Reap where the World Heritage spot of Angkor is located. The father of the Khmer Empire, Jayavrman II, founded his capital here in 802 A.D. The Angkor era lasted until 1431. There are many temples in the area but we were able to visit only a few.

It was a 7 ½ hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The bus was comfortable (and air-conditioned!) and gave us a chance to see some of the rural areas of Cambodia. At this time of the year it is quite dry and we saw many brown rice fields. Houses are usually built on poles and often have rice “straw” in large piles. We were also interested in some of the tractors with long handlebars.

The first evening we took a boat ride on Lake Tonle Sap to see a floating village and to see the sunset over the water.

The next morning we were up before dawn to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat (along with thousands of other tourists). We spent the rest of the morning exploring this largest religious monument in the world. We moved on to Angkor Thom where the fascinating temple Bayon is located. There are 37 of the original 49 towers remaining each with a smiling Buddha face on the four sides. The last temple we visited was Ta Prohm. Here trees perch on the walls with their roots sprouting between stones. These eventually cause the towers and chambers to collapse.

We enjoyed strolling the streets and market areas of Siem Reap in the evenings and an evening meal of duck (Ron) and fish amok (Sally Jo).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2015 at 9:50 am and is filed under Cambodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Siem Reap”

  1. Gerald Says:
    February 18th, 2015 at 8:32 pm

    These pictures put a new meaning to old. I looks like you were carefully walking up all those many steps. Always love your blog and pictures. Gerald

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