clog blog: Cambodia: Temples of Angkor Unplugged

A trip to Cambodia is not complete without visiting Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor.

First stop was to purchase our Angkor Temple Ticket. We went for the 3 day ticket (valid for 3 days in 7 from purchase). And we arranged with a tuk-tuk driver for the next three days around Angkor. We really struck it gold with our wonderful driver Mr Sokhy. He is super friendly and we enjoyed many open conversations with him about his family and life in the area, his English is really good, he provided ice-cold (don’t underestimate this part!) water for us for the next 3 days, and he took really great care of us. Thank you so much Mr Sokhy! If you are visiting Siem Reap, get in touch with us for his contact details if you are looking for a super reliable and wonderful driver.

The wonderful Mr Sokhy!

He has a beautiful full smile but he was a bit shy in front of the camera.

Ticket for the coming days secured, we made our way to the Angkor National Museum and found it so helpful (together with a visit to the National Museum in Phnom Penh) in understanding some of the history behind the temples, the different styles, a little bit about Hinduism and Buddhism, and the meaning of some of the temple symbols and carvings before visiting the actual temples. We didn’t take the audio guide this time and were ok without it, but probably would have picked up more information with it.

We did some homework before we left and all the info we read had some tips on how to avoid the crowds at the temples and the best order to do to temples in. This sounded great, but for the most part we found this wasn’t that easy in practice. There are two main circuits, the small and grand circuit, and the drivers seemed to want to stick to these routes and the order. The small circuit has all the main temples everyone wants to see and the grand circuit includes some others. We did the small circuit the first day, the grand circuit the second day and we visited the Roluos Group of temples on the third day, and we saw pretty much all the temples on those routes. There is a lot of information online about the different temples and the kings who built them, we are not going to go over that here, feel free to read up on that elsewhere.

Overall our best advice would be to go early. Temples open at 07:30 (except for Angkor Wat which opens at 05:00 or 05:30). Mr Sokhy picked us up at 07:00 and we arrived at the first temple of the day at 07:30, most of the tourists arrived from 08:00 and that first half an hour is just magic. It’s still cool and almost nobody around. Choose that first temple wisely! Other advice we read was leave Angkor Wat until the afternoon and we found this to be good advice, it was less crowded and starting to cool down and better lighting than the morning. Angkor Wat is known as the star attraction, but to be honest we thought there are better temples in the complex. Angkor Wat is impressive for its sheer size and we really liked the bas reliefs, especially The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, but it is not on our list of favourites. Visit for sure, but if all you see is Angkor Wat, you will be missing out on a lot. We also skipped sunrise at Angkor Wat and don’t feel we missed anything, except maybe crowds. After 3 days of temples we were expecting to feel templed-out but it was only the crowds and heat we were feeling tired of, if it was emptier and cooler we would happily have continued.

Our favourite temples in no particular order were: Banteay Kdei, The Bayon, Ta Prohm, Preah Kahn, and Banteay Srei.

Without further ado, please enjoy this bumper edition of the Temples of Angkor!

Banteay Kdei

The first temple we visited and one of our favourites.

I love the 'smile' on this statue

The bottom carving in this image is thought to be of a dinosaur and no one can explain what it's doing in a temple of Angkor.

Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm is the temple with the tree roots growing over the temple and made famous in the Tomb Raider movie. We visited Ta Prohm twice, the first time was so crowded it was uncomfortable so we came back first thing the next day and had a much better experience. The lighting was also better 30 minutes earlier, true story.

Ta Keo

Chua Say Tevoda and Thommanom

Two smaller temples opposite each other on either side of the road.

Hardly anyone stopped here so it was super quiet. Definitely two little gems.

The Victory Gate of Angkor Thom

We entered the Angkor Thom complex at the Victory Gate and exited at the South Gate.

The seriously impressive Bayon Temple

Statue of Garuda at the Bayon

Also at the Bayon

Phimeanakas Temple

Angkor Wat

The shape of the towers is supposed to resemble that of a budding Lotus flower.

Bas reliefs depicting the Churning of the Ocean of Milk

Apsaras at Angkor Wat

Stone carved hermit in prayer, Bron's favourite figure to find at all the temples.

This one at Angkor Wat.

Pre Roup

Banteay Srei

The temple carved out of pink sandstone. The carvings, details and decorations here were so much finer than the other temples.

Preah Kahn

A huge temple and so quiet with hardly anyone visiting, definitely a favourite.

It's hard to do justice to this temple with just a few photos.

Overall we were quite amazed at the access tourists have at the Angkor temples, you can pretty much walk and climb over everything and go wherever you want.