Last Updated on May 19, 2021
I was standing in a forest, where a deserted temple stood, somewhere in the abandoned city of Angkor. I almost felt like a lost explorer – like Indiana Jones – stumbling upon a hidden city.
Then I tried to clamber on top of a few fallen stone blocks to get to an arched doorway. Once I’d reached the entrance I found that it was clogged with a huge branch – or was it a root – twisted and entangled, it looked more like a huge snake. It was a bit creepy up there as I stood alone trying to balance myself on two stone blocks, expecting the slumbering snake to hiss out through the crumbling stone arch that looked like it would fall down on me, any moment.
The only sounds I could hear were the birds chirping and the ruffling of leaves that the evening breeze had stirred up. The sky had already changed its hue from yellow to shades of orange and ochre. All the vines, roots and branches in the forest shimmered in the golden evening light. As the waning sun rays swirled down through the twisted trees to fall on the figurines of the heavenly nymphs sculpted onto the cold sandstone; they looked as if they were about to burst into life and dance as they did 1200 years ago.
Top tourist destination
Deserted temple!!!! That would be the wrong word. An hour ago the temple was swarming with tourists from all around the world, with guides carrying their fancy flags speaking all kinds of languages, hawkers carrying souveniers vying for your attention.
And abandoned? Nah…..with more than 2 million visitors walking the roads to Angkor, this 500-acre heritage site is everything but abandoned.
Angkor Archaeological Park
After all, here lay one of the largest religious monuments in the world that represented the architectural pinnacle of the Khmer Empire.
In my mind and in my thoughts, images of the majestic Angkor Wat would vie for a recall against the gory stories I had read up on the Pol Pot regime. The famous and the notorious seemed to conspire to pin Cambodia on our travel list.
The fact that there weren’t too many known acquaintances that had visited the place and the spellbinding heritage it was renowned for seemed to intrigue us. And the dying global interest in what has been one of the worst excesses on its citizens by any ruling power saddened me.
But the abundance of information online about Cambodia and its acclaimed heritage wonder, Angkor’s enigmatic temples, ensured that we kept our travel plans alive. As for the Pol Pot chapter, we knew we could only see a part of the nation but hoped it had buried its past, living the present and was ready for the future.
Temple circuit
The temple hopping nature of our visit demanded we avoid the hot months. February was just right.
Our Angkor itinerary included visits to popular temples like Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Ta Prohm, as well as smaller temples like Pre Rup, Preah Khan, and East Mebon, also temples that lay away from the main Angkor complex like Banteay Srei, Koh Ker, and Beng Melea.
We also did the ‘not to be missed’ items – the sunrise at Angkor Wat and the sunset at Phnom Bakheng.
Ready we too were…for Cambodia. As it was a 5-day trip to Siem Reap, the base town for the Angkor stretch, it would only be the ‘touristy’ leg we were doing. Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville would have to wait for another time.
A fascinating explorer
Back in 1858, Henri Mouhot, a 32-year-old Frenchman succumbed to a travel (and photography) bug and landed up in Thailand (then Siam, of course). He spent time in the jungles in the region that modern-day geography had demarcated as Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. During one of those trips, he stumbled upon the remnants of a lost kingdom – the mesmerising Angkor kingdom. While there were a couple of others who were said to have got there before him, Mouhot became synonymous with the Cambodian heritage site that is now pulling in hordes of travellers…
…like us! As modern-day Mouhots, we too had reached modern-day Siem Reap in a bid to explore the stunning Angkor complex.
The Ultimate Guide to the Angkor temples
We stayed for 5 nights in Siem Reap which gave us 4 full days to explore. We’ve created an itinerary for 4 days in Siem Reap that takes you to the most sought-after temples and also to some of the less-travelled ones.
For anyone planning a similar journey, here’s a look at how we structured our 4-day itinerary in Angkor.
Ready we too were…for Cambodia. Are you?
