11 Feb-Angkor Wat sunset

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Today we set off from KL to Siem Reap. We managed to flag down a cab driver fairly easily and made it to the airport without any major dramas. By the time we found something to eat and were herded to a few different places we boarded the plane.

The flight was fairly short at 2 hours. As we’d pre-bought our visa getting through immigration was fairly quick, then had to wait for our bags, go through customs which was a line to put your piece of paper in a box and grabbed an airport taxi to our hotel for the next few days – Park Lane Hotel. We decided to keep our taxi driver and go out to Angkor Wat for the afternoon via a restaurant for some food.

Bought our 3 day pass and headed off to the temple for the afternoon.

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The temple is filled with intricate carvings.

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Some are in better nick than others.

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The ones that look like timber carvings are kinda cool but they are actually stone.

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There’s a hint of colour on some. You can only imagine what these looked like before the elements gave it a beating.

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Others have been touched so much they are quite shiny.

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Just this first building is quite massive.

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It’s essentially a few gigantic rectangles.

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Few steep bits of stairs to go up it you want a better view. After about an hour we’d pretty much “done” this temple so sat under the tree near the reflecting pond to wait for sunset and people watched for a bit. Had a few tourists who wanted their photo taken with us, so had to get rid of them quick smart.

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While the right reflecting pond was fairly empty it approached 5pm (when people can get a free sunset without incurring a ticket day) so we picked a good spot for a photo. Even though this bank is about 50m long and there were no other people this lady decided this was the only place she wanted to get a picture.

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Meanwhile the other pond was really busy with tour groups, people selling stuff etc. This one seems to give a slightly better reflection but don’t think it’s worth the extra “people effort”.

So back to our hotel to get a good night of sleep so we can try this again for sunrise. Out hotel internet is a bit flakey so posts may be a bit erratic over the next few days.