Cambodia Day 3: Small Temple Tour

Our first real day in Siem Reap started off quite relaxed. We had arranged to meet our tuk-tuk driver Nak at 8 o'clock. Since it was a Sunday, he had his son with him, who spoke better English than he did. A super nice boy, who was really good for his age of 14.
Being smart as I am, I didn't put my SD card back in my camera the night before, after copying the pictures. Well, now I have a new, faster and larger memory card than before.
Then we could finally start. The small tour includes 4 temples, which can be visited within a day. The driver always waits in front of the temples.

It started with Angkor Wat. At the entrance, we hired a guide who guided us through the complex and told us something about its history and structure. I will try to convey all of this correctly.

Angkor Wat was built around 1100 and was completed in just 37 years. The temple is located on an island surrounded by a square of water. You can reach the main site via a makeshift pontoon bridge. Originally, it was a Hindu temple, but today it is Buddhist. So, you can find religious motifs from both religions.
There are 4 different levels in the building, which were accessible to different social classes. The fourth and top level was exclusively for the king.

After passing through the outer walls, we continued along a long path to the central complex of the temple.

In this part, there are several empty pools (see image) that used to be used for washing and can be found on each level. In addition, all walls are covered with reliefs depicting various religious figures or stories. Our tour ended on the third level and we ventured alone to the fourth level. The steps there are very steep, as it is basically the arduous path to heaven. Nowadays, there is a slightly less steep staircase for tourists.

From the top (~40m height), you have a very good view of the impressive complex. Then we descended again and walked to the well-known photo spot.

Since we had been on the road for over two hours, we went back to the tuk-tuk and continued.

The next destination was the Bayon Temple. This complex is significantly smaller and more dilapidated. Particularly striking are the faces on the towers, which are still quite visible.

We didn't linger there for long and quickly moved on to the Ta Prohm Temple. This was one of our favorite of the four temples we saw that day, as it was the location for the movie Tomb Raider.

The temple is very damaged in many places. Towers have collapsed and the walls have collapsed in many places. The reason for this is a large number of trees that with their huge roots have taken hold in many places in the temple. However, this also gives the complex a unique appearance. There are large piles of stones lying around at many places, and restoration work is underway on one side.

You can take the people in the background as a size comparison. The wall was about 3m high. I have never seen anything so impressive before.

Finally, we went to the Banteay Kdei Temple. There were significantly fewer people here and it was much more relaxed to walk around the complex and through the many corridors

After that, the tour was over and we went back to the hostel. We took the opportunity to invite our two companions Nak and Nan for a smoothie, as we wanted to know what it is like to be a tuk-tuk driver in Cambodia, and it was very interesting to hear a bit of their personal stories.
On average, Nak earns $15 a day, so he already earned very well with the $30 from us for the day. Then there are a few earnings from Nan's mother, so they might have around $40 a day. For our standards, that's not much, but it's totally sufficient for Cambodia. Nak used to be a veterinarian, but it didn't pay off anymore, so he has been a tuk-tuk driver for 2 years now.
Nan is still going to school and when you hear that he pays around $1300 a year just for his English lessons, we can consider ourselves very lucky in Germany. There were many other little things, but I won't go into detail about them here. It was definitely nice to know that our expenses on that day were well spent.

In the pictures, you can see that all the temples somehow look very similar in their principles. That's why we wanted to see something different and arranged to meet Nak again the next morning. Our destination this time was Phnom Kulen, a small mountain range about 60 km away.

The rest of the afternoon and evening consisted of enjoying the sunset by the pool and having dinner on Pub Street, before we happily and slightly exhausted fell into bed.