Cambodia - Siem Reap. Angkor Wat Day 1
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The first thing we learned on day one is that the term “Angkor Wat “ as we and most people call it, refers to one of many temples. The main Angkor Wat temple itself differs from other temples in that it became a mausoleum to SuryaVarman II, who completed it around 1150. Angkor Wat means “royal city that is a monastery [Wat]”, which it became in the thirteenth century.
Although Angkor Wat is large and quite grand, my favourite temples were: Banteay Samre, Ta Som and Ta Prohm.
On the first day, the front desk recommended we do the long tour consisting of temples furthest away: Banteay Srey, Banteay Samre, Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Some and Preah Khan. We started after breakfast around 8 a.m. and it took about an hour to get there in an air-conditioned van ($35 for the day). The road was quite bumpy, otherwise a tuk tuk would have probably been a better choice; in a van, it’s hot as soon as you get inside and the A/C never quite kicks in enough before you get to the next temple. In a tuk tuk, the breeze while moving along is very cooling even on a hot day.
As one of the most popular temples, Banteay Srea had excellent facilities and was flooded with other tourists. With Angkor Wat receiving upwards of 2 million tourists a year, most of these in the dry season (November to March), perhaps this wasn’t so surprising.
We found the temple small and the feeling was exacerbated by the large number of other tourists swarming the place. The carved stone inlay work was impressive though and clearly effort had gone into refurbishing this temple (although we only found out later by comparing to others). On leaving, we were surrounded by touts asking us to buy guide books and cold drinks.
After Banteay Samre which we both liked very much, the boys were already tiring, so Carmen and I alternated on the next three temples before and after lunch. The lunch place the driver took us was more expensive than downtown Siem Reap half an hour away, but the boys were hungry and we weren't in a position to protest and go elsewhere. The saving grace was the food, which was very good.
We really enjoyed our first day sight-seeing the temples and I would say the experience met or exceeded our expectations. Some of the temples had traditional bands playing as you walked to or away from the temple and there were always touts from which we would interact and buy drinks, food and trinkets to keep the boys happy. Luckily, we all brought hats as the sun was very strong and the driver carried copious amounts of water which we consumed between sites. Most other tourists seemed to do their sight-seeing during the morning hours and then return to their respective hotels for the afternoon, so the temples were largely free of people after lunch.
After a swim in the hotel pool, we took the hotel shuttle to the night market, bought some t-shirts and a watch, before going to Khmer Kitchen for the curry.