Angkor Wat Tour Guide, Siam Reap, Cambodia (Day 1)

It has no doubt that Angkor Wat has been the jewel of Southeast Asia that attracted many travellers around the world to come. But another thing that amused me is that the founder of Angkor Wat was actually crossed history with us, Indonesian Hindu kingdom centuries ago. Angkor Wat, Angkor means “city” and “what” means temple. You can guess that it means the city of temples. It is an area with many temple site that you couldn’t even finish to explore for one day. Well, you could see the big sites, but you’re not gonna see the other amazing temples that located far away. And so, start from the beginning, I have compiled the Angkor Wat Tour Guide for the first day on this post.

Jumbo our tuk-tuk driver!

As I and Arma were very excited to do temple hopping, we decided to take the 2 full days tour instead. We surely don’t want to miss anything here. You can read more about my post of the quick travel guide to explore Angkor Wat here. Our super nice driver, Jumbo was recommended by Arma’s friend who loved to come back to Angkor Wat over and over again. I guess that’s why Jumbo tried to learn Bahasa Indonesia. He practised the language with us when we were on the road.Now, Jumbo played a really big role for us. He drove his tuk-tuk through the rain, helped Arma with her broken shoes, and he took us to the authentic local night market a.k.a no tourist. We even taste the original snack of Cambodia! (Which looks like “Ootak-otak ikan tenggiri” , cabbage and some glass noodle combined into one and dip it in peanut sauce. Loved it!)

The first day of the big tour temple is where I decided to see the temple for sunrise. Plenty of tips said that we should at least see the sunrise or sunset in Angkor Wat. Well, Arma was annoyed of course, but she still managed to get up.

Boy, it was already crowded place when we got there. So I guess not only us who thought the same way. We showed up at 4 AM for God sake, and it was full already!I couldn’t even really described the magic once you get lost into the temple. It was full of history, awe, and wonder of how the Khmer Kingdom back then could even build this enormous temples. I was enchanted once I saw the bas-relief, the decoration, and the ruins. I couldn’t even feel my leg, as we walked hours and hours to explore all of them.

So no further ado. Pictures will show you the magic. I am not exaggerating, it was truly like magic.

After half day wandering around the temples, we finally arrived at this long terrace called The Elephant Terrace. It has so many elephants statues as the guardian of the temples.

One tip from us: Instead of walking up on the terrace like others, you should check out the small road under it. The bas-relief was still so beautiful, that we couldn’t even describe it with words!

Some of the temples still being used by the locals to do a ceremony. We were lucky enough to witness it among our journey. It was a very quiet temple and a small one that most of the tourist skipped. But not us! 🙂

Mesmerising isn’t it?

We already covered the big temples on day 1, with sweats, numb legs, and full of amazing photos. But the feeling of getting lost inside it stays between our memories. It makes you feel small, and grateful for being there and witness it all. History does affect your life at present.

Day 2 of the tour we have covered the whole Angkor Wat temples. We went to the most far away temples, I swear, there were only like a 5-6 tourist there. So we had more joy on the second day!

Read the Day 2 part on the next post!

© 2017 Writing & Images copyright of Marina Utami.