What I hadn't realized, however, was how big the archaeological park is: it covers more than 50 square kilometers and contains countless temples. To see the site properly, you need at least three days (or more if you're a big fan of old temples lying in ruins). I got a three-day pass and planned to do both the small and big circuits as well as Angkor Thom, the ancient capital of the Khmer empire.
The temples of Angkor were built by various kings of the Khmer empire, roughly between the 9th and 13th centuries. My first stop on the small circuit was the biggest and most well-known of these temples: Angkor Wat, dating from the 12th century. This picture was taken from within the temple walls of Angkor Wat - just imagine how big the compound must be if the viewpoint is already well inside of it:
The amazing thing about Angkor Wat is that it doesn't only look great from a distance - many of its original decorations and bas-relief carvings have also been preserved. The carvings depict mythical stories, recount battles and tell tales of kings and wise men, all in great detail and with many, many individual figures. This is just a tiny example:
Once I exited the gallery with all the carvings towards the inside of the temple complex, I had a great view of the five inner towers (two of which are hidden behind the others in this picture). The middle tower is much higher than the two outer ones, but appears to be the same height because it is further back.
The original stairs leading up to the inside of the temple were very steep - I read somewhere that they designed them like this on purpose because progressing to the inner sanctum wasn't supposed to be easy. Today, as you can see on the left side of the picture above, there are more comfortable wooden staircases built on top of the original ones.
The most prevalent decoration in all of Angkor, not just Angkor Wat, are these celestial nymphs, called Apsaras. They are always smiling, always lightly clothed, and often dancing - and there are thousands of them!
I spent a good few hours in Angkor Wat, and then continued on the small circuit: I entered the ancient city of Angkor Thom through the south gate and went on to look at the east gate.
All of Angkor Thom's city gates are similar to this one, and certainly just as magnificent. It must have been a grand and imposing sight to arrive at Angkor Thom back in its day.
The next temple on the circuit was Ta Keo - tiny and relatively plain in comparison to Angkor Wat.
Just a little further was Ta Phrom - the temple known from the Tomb Raider movie. All of the temples of Angkor were more or less overgrown with jungle at some point in time, but at Ta Phrom the jungle has not been cleared away completely. As a result, trees grow right out of the temple walls, creating a unique atmosphere. While Lara Croft is the only visitor to the temple in the movie, reality is unfortunately very different: since Angkor is Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction, and Ta Phrom is one of the temples everybody seems to visit, the temple was really crowded. Even though I waited for quite a bit I found it impossible to get a shot of the temple plus tree roots without tourists posing for photos running into my shot.
All of the temple walls - and I do mean all of them - carry decorations of some sort. This is one of the better preserved parts:
Another impressive root resting on the temple - amazing what the jungle is capable of, isn't it?
The next temple on my list was Banteay Kdei. This one doesn't seem to be on everybody's must-see-list, which was a relief after the crowds at Ta Phrom.
I found a beautiful carving of two dancing Apsaras somewhere inside:
My last stop for the day was Prasat Kravan, the smallest temple I'd seen so far. This is all of it - no walls, no hidden towers, no passageways to explore. I found it quite refreshing after exploring four very extensive temples.
Prasat Kravan is also one of the oldest temples in the area, and the only one to use small red bricks instead of big stone slabs. The size of the bricks has an interesting effect on the decorations inside:
