Today was luckily a beautiful day, we have risked coming in rainy season and today was anything but. Our good friends Cookie and Jacques (Lola Easter sitters) recommended a great guide to take us around. On Feb 16th this year the government increased the day price to see the temples from $20 US to $37 US, an 85% increase, I thought this may have a pretty significant effect on the amount of visitors (mainly as back packers have pretty strict budgets) but I was totally wrong, the place was over flowing with people from early this morning and it is the low season. I must say that this took away from the beauty of this massive temple for me, probably because we were spoilt in Bagan. In Bagan we got to explore many temples all on our own, they were quiet and unspoilt. Angkor Wat is spectacular and the 400 acres are full of beautiful lakes and monuments that we only scratched the surface of. However, the millions of selfie sticks did make it a little less special to me.
We started our day with breakfast served to us on our roof top patio.
We then headed to the temples, Angkor Wat being number one on the list.
Luis loved on these snakes sculptures, they are everywhere to protect the Gods.
It is really impressive, and you cannot fathom that it only took 30 years to build given the time when it was (1114AD to 1150AD), but guess that is what 300,000 men and 6, 000 elephants could achieve (not sure many were treated so well).
Now just hours later I can see just how impressive it is.
This is what got to me, long queues to do anything and a million umbrellas everywhere. We did not even make it right to the top and we were there first thing in the morning.
Our great driver having a nap in the tuk tuk while we explored.
I left Angkor Wat a little worried that the rest of the day would be spent in queues with massive crowds, but I am so happy to say I was totally wrong and I ended up falling in love with this place. More to follow on this, my final big tip for the main temple here, is go very very early and explore inside before going out into the gardens as it fills up quickly.
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