timistravels

Temples of Angkor! “Capital of Temples” is about 4 miles North of Siem Reap.   The most famous is Angkor Wat though Bayon and others are fascinating as well. There are over 1000 temples in the 400 acre area all built between 9^th and 13^th centuries origionally they were Hindu temples. In the 12^th century they were transformed into Buddhist temples.

We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us to the temples for $16 for the entire day. First stop, purchase the day pass to get into the area. It was $37 and they take your photo and put it on your day pass. You can get a 2 and 3 day pass as well.

In the 15^th century the Angkor empire collapsed. There are a variety of reasons sited for this but most historians believe that very intense monsoon rains followed by a drought lead to the collapse. After this the temples were overtaken by Mother Nature and the jungle took over the buildings. The growth of the jungle, earthquakes as well as wars all took their toll on the area until the late 1800’s.

In the early 1900’s the French ruled that region and established a commission to restore the area. However, not much happened until the early 1960’s and it was a little too late as Cambodia was headed into a civil war in the 1970’s.   Regardless France, Germany and India all supported the renovation and upkeep of the temples.

In 1992 the area became a UNESCO World Heritage site. At that time there were not many visitors. From the early 1990’s until today the number of visitors has risen from a few thousand to over 500,000 by the early 2000’s and most recently over 2 million visitors last year. If you can get there before even more visitors take over the area, visit now!

We did not feel the urgency to do the sunrise or the sunset visit. Many people do and from everyone we talked to that did the early morning visit, they all said it was NOT worth it. We were picked up at 8 a.m., immediately went to get our tickets and finally to the temples. We spent about 6 hours touring the different temples (saw 7 all together).

Bring water, bring camera’s and back up batteries and dress appropriately. Cover you shoulders and your knees. It was hot for me, but you must be respectful. We were disheartened by folks that did not follow those rules.