Old School Temples in Cambodia.

The following morning we got up at 4.20am so we could go and watch the sun rise at Angkor Wat. There was a tuk-tuk drive in the dark with a much better tuk-tuk driver and then we walked up to the old stone temple as the sun rose behind it. It was a very beautiful site but my camera didn't really capture the colours well.

There were a lot of other people with the same idea of I took some photos of them too. :)

It was hard for me to see through the crowd...

Between the four of us we had hired a guide for the day and he was really very knowledgable. His name was Sunith. (Said Sun-It.)

Here he is telling us all about Angkor Wat.

He was also super passionate about the relief carvings in the stone so he made it more interesting. He did a really good job.

There was this funny guide who was a Loas man but had a really strong and loud Texan accent! I kept looking at him expecting to see a cowboy or something but it was just this little Asian dude!

Here Steve is making a wish.

Some monkeys were getting up to some monkey business on the temple too!

The relief sculptures all told stories (mostly religious based at the first temple). The story that stood out most for me was about the Gods and the Demons using a big snake to twist a mountain on a tortoise's back. I have forgotten what they were stirring up now though. It was a popular story. I loved it when Sunith excitedly pointed out his favorite parts. We climbed up to the top of that temple and admired the view. (Not up these stairs though...)

Here are the stairs you could go up and down. Very steep!

Here you can see how the temple was constructed.

After a break for breakfast (we had been supplied a packed breakfast which was a few bits of bread, a few bananas and a little packet marmalade - we were not impressed, it was a rip off for the price we payed) we went to a temple with lots of heads facing in all the directions of the compass. We stopped at a bridge on the way though that had statues depicting the demon and Gods story again.

One side of the bridge shows the demons pulling the snake and the other side shows the gods.

Some of the bits of snake have broken and are gone.

That's our green tuk-tuk

The heads temple had been partially ruined because it had been left unattended for a long time and wild beasts like tigers had lived in it. Trees had grown in it and elephants had scratched their backs on bits of it! A tornado in the 80's (I think it may have been 1987) had also ruined part of it. During religious disagreements most of the images of Buddha had been removed. Most of the relief sculpture at this temple told stories of every day life of the time it was created.

Here Sunith is explaining about how the images of Buda have been removed.

Sunith was very excited to take pictures with Bron and Ryan's iPad. The relief sculpture in this temple I liked more as they were all of everyday events and scenes rather than religious in nature. 

The next temple we just walked through by ourselves.

We climbed up to the top of this one too in the hot hot sun.

Look how steep the steps are! Talk about vertigo!!!

I had to wear a t-shirt over my dress when we went up the top of the temples because it was a sacred religious site.

Can you see the reclining Buda in this photo? A long time ago some people took the stones of the temple and made this Buda.

No one is quite sure what these towers were used for.

There were some talented artists painting the temples for tourists to buy.

 And the last one was the one where Tomb Raider was filmed. It was really interesting because all the trees had half taken it over.

I liked looking at all the old trees.

This was my favorite temple. I liked it because I enjoyed seeing the merging of nature with something made by man.

Don't you love how this tree looks like it is delicately perched on the wall?

The trees were huge!

At 3pm we were finished and super tired. 10 hours of temple exploring! Ryan had a cold and had sneezed about 1000 times in the day! I nearly fell asleep in the tuk-tuk at least 5 times on the way home and kept jerking awake at the last moment as I was afraid I would fall out. That afternoon we had a good nap after lunch. Then we went out for our last dinner with Bron and Ryan. We had heaps of fun with you guys! I'm glad we met up and could travel together for so long!

We said goodnight to the geckos and packed our bags ready to head back to Thailand in the morning.