Angkor Revisit - Ta Phrom, Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat

Date: 27th December 2014

Ta Phrom

It was a quarter passed 2 when we were entering Ta Phrom gate. There are few gates entrances to the archaeological site of which you have to remember so that you can go back to the vehicle (in the case of not using the tour guide). We got lost a bit after a lot of touring inside the huge area and that's why I would like to remind for you not having the similar hassle like we did. Since we had only about 3 hours to cover the 3 places, we were so panicked when we could not find the way back to the parking lot. Lucky us, after a few extra minutes of searching, we could move on to the next site, i.e. Angkor Thom after being in Ta Phrom for about an hour. A very good place to visit, Tomb Rider's filming place, 1 should have been here.

I'm not going to share the background historical facts of Ta Phrom as I have well covered them in my previous entry that I made following my visit in 2007. You may read them and may even see how different I look at 7 years ago, older is better. The link is in "Siem Reap, Day 2 - Ta Phrom" written in Febuary 2013. The difference that I saw in the latest trip was, the place was a lot more crowded than my earlier trip. The visitor's area has been open up larger than before due to effortless restoration works by an archaeologist team. Thanks to them, you got to see the beauty of the lost city.

Angkor Thom

When we arrived in Angkor Thom, passing by the Elephant Terrace, I was actually very happy that Anne is not fond of the details history like I do. Should she decided to explore the whole Angkor Thom's complex, we would not be able to make it to the Angkor Watt nor even a dream to have good dinner dance show later that night. Anne is my most favorite person that I'm so lucky to have as my best friend. She's been way too good to me in all our 3 legs of earthbound travel thus far. I'm indeed lucky to have her as friend, though she is not so fascinated about history of the world. She saw a beauty of Bayon faces at the main temple complex in Angkor Thom then knowing about the Khmer empire. 

However, she has changed quite a lot from when we first started our journey, for example, she bought a Nikon DSLR camera and able to take a good photo of me. Else, I would be only capturing her. She is more sporting to give me a special pose and surprisingly suggested a pose of her imitating the Bayon. Gosh, I really love this girl so much. May we able to connect our travel route in the next few years to come. Another cute thing about her is the importance of being in Angkor Watt, without knowing that beside Bayon faces, there's other attractive things to see in Angkor Thom, i.e. Baphuon, Terrace of Leeper King, Phimeanakas, Terrace of Elepants, Preah Palilay and Te Pranam which was all covered in my full day trip with husband in 2007.

You may read the details of Angkor Thom in my previous entry, "Siem Reap, Day 2 - Angkor Thom". I'm equally happy to read those again today. How much different I looked before and now. Indeed, I'm feeling bless being able to visit them with 2 most important person in my life, i.e. my husband and my best friend. 

Angkor Watt

We arrived in Angkor Watt at 5.45pm. The place is amazingly full of crowds, mostly with the foreigner. As it was Saturday, there's quite an enormous number of local tourist too. I enjoyed watching a family group behaviour which was captured in my camera lenses. I'm sharing some of them here so that you may see what kind of loves visibly felt around them. The presence of love is indeed omnipresence like the presence of Allah.

Again, you may read what I wrote about Angkor Watt in my previous entry, which covers most aspect of the history narrated in "Siem Reap, Day 2 - Angkor Wat". I'm going to make a separate entry of the Apsara carvings in all the 3 temples that we've visited. The last entry for Siem Reap would be about the Apsara dance show.

Till later, thank you for visiting my page. Last but not last our last few photos in Angkor Wat to end this entry. Cheers everyone, have a good weekend and good rest.