Angkor Thom

There is no way these few pages can do justice to the wonder that is Angkor. Besides that it's huge (roughly 20 by 20 kilometres!), it's a 1000 years old, it lies in the middle of the jungle, it's mysterious (centre of a lost civilisation) and utterly beautiful. We took a three day pass and although you get a bit of "temple fatigue" after "another temple" we never got bored.

The main focus for the first day was to visit Angkor Thom. For starters our driver dropped us off at a "little" monument called Baksei Chamkrong near the Southgate of Angkor thom. It's build in the 10th century. It was our first monument so we took a lot of pictures and climbed like madmen to the top. Soaked from the sweat we walked to the southgate of Angkor Thom.

Angkor Thom is a fortified city, build in the 12th century. The wall that encloses Angkor Thom has five gates. These magnificent mansize faces stand left and right of the road leading up to the gate.

Three kilometres up the road lies the Bayon. An immense construction, almost Gothic with narrow corridors and 54 towers decorated with 200 smiling gargantuan faces. From a distance the Bayon looks like a big heap of rocks, but up close the building reveals its beauty. It is decorated with 1200m of bas reliefs depicting scenes of everyday life in the 12th century.