Angkor
Travel Location: Siem-Reap,Cambodia
Getting in to Cambodia meant a long bus journey from Bangkok to the border of Cambodia. Here we had to get out of the bus and formally leave Thailand by having our visa stamped. Next we had to walk over a bridge in a place between Thailand and Cambodia known as ‘No-man’s Land’ – I didn’t want to drop my passport in the river there!
After we got to the Cambodian border we queued and got our passports stamped to let us in their country and then travelled to Siem Reap in a very old taxi driven very quickly along bumpy roads.
Siem Reap is the nearest modern day city to the old Kingdom of Cambodia dating back to around 800-1300 AD known as Angkor.
We got up early and had to hire a Tuk-Tuk to get there and around because it’s so big – our driver was called Borath and showed around. The Tuk-Tuk’s are slightly different here and are like a trailer for a motorbike – they much more comfortable!
Cambodia at this time was a very powerful and wealthy country and many people wanted to live there. This meant that the kings were able to employ lots of people to build their palaces and temples.
It’s very difficult to take photographs that show how big these buildings are and how big the whole Angkor region is. We spent a very full day there and saw so many things, but it is possible to spend an entire week looking at all the temples and palaces.
Our favourite temple was the Terrace of Elephants where when the King had a party his guests would arrive by elephant and walk along the 350 meter terrace with tigers roaring below them!
One of the temples called Ta Prohm was used to film Tomb Raider. I felt a little like Lara Croft exploring the temple and climbing the walls, fortunately I didn’t get chased by any wolves, but unfortunately I didn’t find any treasure either!
