Yummy breakfast

One of the reason why we didn’t mind too much that we had booked an expensive night rather than two is that today is the sixth month-i-versary or demi-anniversary. After being on the road for six months, sleeping in a freezing tents, moldy cupboards or scorching shoe boxes, this one night was well earned.

So we slept in, making good use of the noon check out time. Breakfast was included so we feasted on scrambled eggs, baguette, muesli with milk, a croissant with pineapple jam, fresh fruit, orange juice and of course tea and coffee. It was a very enjoyable breakfast.

Approaching Angkor Wat over a bridge, crossing the moat

A bit of lounging and blogging later, we had to pack up already and move to our next accommodation. Check in was no problem but it was only 12.20pm again, the hottest time of the day. So we decided to have a bit of a siesta before leaving at 2pm. We had left Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom for our last day at the complex and I was anxious to get a good look at them.

Angkor Wat is a tourist magnet so you cannot except a quiet walk around the premises. However, after having seen the crowd at sunrise, we were positively surprised by how much space you still got. You start by walking over a bridge which crosses the moat and leads to the entrance comprised of three gates. On the inner premises, you cross quite a bit of space with a first a library and then a pond on each side before the walkway leads you to the actual temple of Angkor Wat.

Through the first gate, looking towards the temple itself

Starting from the terrace, the galleries are decorated with massive bas-reliefs so we spent a good while circling the building to look at all of them. Here, the knowledge that we had gained through our museum’s visit in combination with the information in the Lonely Planet gave us a good insight. We actually had a lot of fun trying to find the important gods in all of the battle scenes. Flo even managed to find another couple without any kind of guide or information sheet to whom he explained two or three of the bas-reliefs.

bad times for the Vietnamese … but they will remember this, don’t you worry …

The order in which we looked at the scenes was as follows: The battle of Kurukshetra, the army of Suryavarman II, Heaven & Hell, Churning of the ocean of milk, Vishnu conquers the demons, Krishna & the Demon King, Battle of the Gods & the Demons, Battle of Lanka. This will probably tell you nothing but it might clearify the order of our photos in the gallery a bit. These scenes seem to be unrelated at least in so far as they don’t tell a continuous story but rather many, many battles. After finishing this round, we were tired already. Going up into the inner part of Angkor Wat, we re-discovered the crowds, all queuing up to climb the last stairwell into one of the towers. Given how long the queue was, that it was 4pm already and that the late afternoon light was very pretty, we abstained from the last level. Instead, we went back outside to take more photos of the whole complex. Then, we also had to move on to Angkor Thom.

Rocinante and Bayon in the late afternoon light

Angkor Thom is an even larger complex than Angkor Wat as it was a whole city inside a moat and walls once. Given the time, we rode Rocinante straight to Bayon which is the largest temple in the area. It was already tinged in a beautiful yellow light so I took pictures of the bike and the temple. We were still all bas-reliefed out so we skipped this round and went straight up to the towers. In Bayon, the remarkable feature are the large faces adorning the towers. They looked awesome in this special light. Flo even gave one of the faces a hongi. 🙂

Tired but satisfied we left the Angkor temple complex after visiting Bayon. Yes, there is a lot we haven’t seen but there is also a lot we managed to see in just three days. We are quite happy with our time here.