highlights..
Angkor is the park area outside Siem Reap (the local tourist town) and
is all about ancient temples. So instead of the usual Top 5, here is
my Top 5 temples at Angkor (we spent 3 days wandering the park so this
is only a small selection of what there is to see):
1. Bayon - 216 giant face sculptures (of the King at the time) make
this the most memorable and impressive temple.
2. Banteay Srei - on a small more human scale a little way out of the
park. Beautifully preserved carvings and a lovely red colour stone.
3. Ta Prohm - very ruinous and overtaken by enormous and ancient trees
with giant roots spreading like tentacles all over the ruins. Very
Indiana Jones.
4. Angkor Wat - amazingly well preserved and beautiful bas-reliefs
around the terraces but these are its best feature and it doesn't
deserve its status as Angkor's #1 temple. Good for sunrise though.
5. Terrace of the Elephants - a long wall in the Royal Palace complex
with an impressive number of large elephant carvings and some great
elephant trunk sculptures coming out of the walls.
Siem Reap is also a pretty decent little town. A good range of
restaurants and bars (from tourist standard on Pub Rd (!) to posh
cocktail bars (Nest - needless to say, my favourite!)) The souvenir
shopping is good too with a couple of day markets and a fun night
market with a couple of outdoor bars. Generally very tourist friendly
and safe and much more developed than I had expected (although it
doesn't pass my Starbucks and GAP globalisation test!) Poverty and
evidence of the Killing Fields actually very limited but that leaves
something to look forward to in Phnom Pehn...
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