Visits to the temple city of Angkor

Yesterday and today, the visit to the temple city of Angkor was on the agenda. Here you have the opportunity to choose between a 1-day pass, 3-day pass, and 7-day pass! We had a 3-day pass and honestly, even though the temple complexes and the surroundings are so fascinating, I was exhausted after each day! '3 days is enough for me' 😉!

Yesterday and today, our Tuk Tuk driver😁 picked us up from the hotel at 9:30 am and took us to the respective temples!

Yesterday, the following temples were on the program:

Angkor Thom with Bayon, then Ta Keo and Ta Prohm (known from the movie Tomb Raider)!

On the way to the Bayon temple, we saw monkeys 🐒 roaming freely for the first time! Yippiiiiiiii, I love monkeys and our driver had to stop immediately so I could take photos 😉! Then we went to the Bayon temple, the entrance was already AMAZING - we crossed a bridge with numerous statues on it, and on the gateway, there was the face of an oversized Bodhisattva with the magical smile of enlightenment 😊👍 - 'Daniela put these words in my mouth, because I would have just written big grinning stone head '😂!

Daniela was my history guide here in Angkor👍! At the beginning of each temple visit, she told me the historical highlights! At the beginning of each visit, I was completely focused, but after 5 hours, I switched to screensaver mode and just smiled politely 🙆😉😂!

I liked the Bayon and Ta Prohm temples the most.

At Bayon, the Bodhisattvas are simply AMAZING! It looks fantastic how these large statues look in the directions of the compass, very impressive and unimaginable to me how people built it in the 12th century 🙆! There was also a monkey running around at the Bayon temple, which was another highlight for me! After almost 2 hours, we went to the Ta Keo temple, where we had a fantastic view from the 2nd terrace 😊! But that also meant that we had to climb numerous steep stone steps! That again, at what felt like 77.6 degrees and even higher humidity 😩! When we arrived at the bottom, I just said 'I'm exhausted, - no more temples today'! Well, Daniela said that there is still Ta Prohm and I was really looking forward to it! Well then, let's go see it 😂😬!

The Ta Prohm temple is literally swallowed by the jungle 🙃. It looks gigantic how the huge roots lay over sections of the temple! The heat was somewhat more bearable here, as many sections of the temple were in the shade 😉! Daniela and I were so exhausted (from the weather) after visiting the temple, that we just walked to the Tuk Tuk and wanted to go back to the hotel! Actually, we wanted to go to the city, but I apparently fell asleep at 6:30 pm 😴 and slept until 8:30 am 😁!

It was the last day of sightseeing in Angkor and Daniela said to me 'Anke, today there will only be smaller temples'!!!😬 This statement made me very happy 😂!

After visiting temple number 1, I said to her 'didn't you say they would be smaller today? I don't see or feel anything'! 😩 Because today, it was by far the hottest day of the 3 🌞! I would have loved to ride the Tuk Tuk through Angkor the entire afternoon, as the breeze was pleasantly cool 🤗! We arrived at the top of a temple around 3:15 pm and I thought the sun was about to grill me 🌞😵! But Daniela also said that it was unbearably hot today 🙆! So we carefully climbed down from the temple and ended our tour here 😀👍!

We then went to the Old Market and did some shopping🙃! Neither of us became the Shopping Queen of Siem Reap, because the heat was unbearable here too, and so shopping wasn't enjoyable 😝!

Then we went back to the hotel, I fell into bed exhausted after taking a shower, and Daniela went swimming in the pool!

Conclusion about Angkor: It will definitely stay in our memory 😉 - totally fascinating - but also 'mega' exhausting in these weather conditions!

Now we are sitting on the plane back to Vietnam and saying 'Goodbye Cambodia and Hello to the island 🌴 Phu Quoc in Vietnam 🇻🇳'! We will spend 4 days at the beach here🌴🌞🤗😊! We are so looking forward to this quiet and relaxing time 👍😉!!!!!