Leaving Angkor Wat we headed straight for Ankhor Thom which was very impressive, within this area is the Bayon Temple, which has lots of face sculptures, 216 in fact. It has 54 towers each with four faces going around the sides.
The security guard there was determined that I would have this photo taken , with one of the faces supposedly resting on my hand, I am not convinced though. We thanked him and made our escape!
Poor David I always ask him to stand in photos so you can get a proper perspective of size. Look at the base of this tree, huge. At the front entrance to Akngor Thom is the Terrace of the Elephants. It is a long wall with sculptures of elephants on it.
This is the steps by the terrace.
On our third and last day at the temples we visited 5 temples.
Some of the temples are a bit precarious looking, with walls and doorways standing at very strange angles, and daylight being seen through what should be solid walls. At times they are supported by wooden sticks, as in the picture below, or wooden frames, at other times they are just left. In Britain
a lot of it would be closed due to Health and Safety.
The first one was Preah Khan (Sacred Sword) which has elements of Hinduism and Buddhism in it.
This bit of sandstone is really red. A lot of the temples are made from sandstone which was quarried a great distance away then floated down the river on rafts
In the photo below I originally leant on the balustrade bit but it wobbled so stepped back. Could you imagine if I knocked a temple over,that would be a bit of an oops moment.
The carvings above are of ladies dancing and are in the dancing hall area.
I know another tree but I like them.
The structure above is in the middle of the temple and is what you normally see on top of Buddha temples. At this point a security policeman decided to latch on to us and give us a mini tour. I thought, oh oh , here we go he is after money. Then I thought no, he is a policeman but when it came for us to leave he asked for a donation!
Next on the route was the Neak Pean which had a long walk way to reach it , once you get there you see a large square pool , and four smaller pools on each side. There is a circular island in the middle which only has the remnants of one water spout left. There used to be four, an elephants head, a human head, a horse's head and a lion's head. This is getting renovated so you couldn't walk all the way around it. A lot of the renovations that are being done are with the help of other countries such as, India and Germany.
The last three temples were all small, Ta Som, East Mebon and Pre Rup.
This temple was lovely and small with a nice walk through trees to get to it , when you get to the end and turn around to go back you get a lovely surprise this amazing tree with its roots growing down over a doorway.
Our last temple had eight of these elephant statues in it . Four in the corners at one level then again at the next level up. In the wall under where David is standing is a geocache which thankfully he found easily.
The temples were built by successive kings with each trying to outdo each other in splendour, area, height and decoration. The height in particular was a struggle especially in the heat, as we climbed to the top of temples. Amazing views were seen from the top though and at times we were rewarded with a welcome breeze. We returned to our hotel to collapse in soggy heaps and that was just visiting them goodness knows what it was like to build them.
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