Thursday morning found us awake at 3AM to catch a flight from Singapore to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
From the hustle-bustle, sleek, spotless, high-tech power city of Singapore …to the red-dirt, land-mine ridden, poverty-ridden streets of Cambodia… I felt a calm come over me that I could not explain.
Siem Reap is the gateway to Angkor Cambodia – a UNESCO World Heritage site comprised of over 1,000 ancient temples of the Khmer empire. It’s most well-preserved and most popular temple, Angkor Wat, is known as what may be the largest religious structure in the world.
Since we arrived so early, we dropped our luggage at the hotel and set off to tour some of the more popular temples before the day got too late, too hot. The following two days were a blur of exploring temples ruins.
First, my favorite – Ta Prohm – made popular by Laura Croft Tomb Raider.
It was built in the 12th and 13th century as a monastery and university. It’s one of the Angkor sites left at it’s original found state – large trees growing into the ruins, piles of pillars and foundation scattered everywhere.
We did a bridal shoot at Ta Prohm on our last day.
Nearby, we visited Preah Khan which was left in similar state as Ta Prohm. It was quite hot out during our visit, and so we rested in this enclosure for a few minutes.
One of the most ornate of the temples is also a bit of a drive. Banteay Srei is surprisingly small and miniature compared to the other sites.
There are a number of gateways into Angkor, all lined with statues – this was a rare case where all of them had heads in-tact.
Angkor Wat is the first temple we saw, and since it’s the most popular and well-known – it was quite crowded in front too.
The rest of these images are largely from Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.
Have to throw one of Mike in there too!
Comments:
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
AWESOME! I have always wanted to visit here. But I am dying to see the bridal shoot – have checked your blog like 10 times a day since you mentioned it!