As I told you before, every missionary gets to go to Angkor Wat once during their mission. This time it was my turn. I went and met with Elder Stokes at the mission home so our companions could go with each other, and we made our way over to a market to catch a shuttle taxi up to Siem Reap. It was really fun being with him. The ride up to SR was long. We left at 9:00 ish and got there at 3:00 or so. It was actually faster than usual because we went in a small shuttle taxi thing and not the bus. Either way we had a good time talking and enjoying the Cambodian countryside.
When we got up to SR, we met with the other elders at their apartment for a little while and then we went to go buy a few things for the next day - including our tickets to go to the different temples. We were also told that after 5:00 everyone was able to get in for free for the sunset. Well, we bought the tickets and then made our way to a mountain/hill which, but for some reason they did not let us go up. So we went over the famous walkway that goes over the mote to the Angkor temple. We took some pictures over there and watched the sunset. It was really pretty. Super awesome. Then we eventually made our way back to the other elders’ house. The next day we were up and out early so that we could see everything that we wanted.
Our tuk tuk driver met us out the elders house. His name was Dara, and he was a member.
We started the day at a temple/building called Beantey Kdei. (I am going to butcher all of these spellings). It was cool and awesome because it was the first thing we saw, but the day just got better.
Then we went to Angkor Wat, which obviously was amazing. It was so big. When you get inside you can go up into to one the buildings and look out over everything. I do not know how they built it all. The walls, ceilings, etc are carved and look amazing. The mote is also perfect. They made it themselves, and it runs in straight lines to a 90 degree angle. Awesome. It was really awesome. Then that day in the afternoon we got the shuttle back to PP. Wednesday was back to normal.
Down the road was Bayon, which is where all the pillars with a face carved on each side is. That was crowded but also really cool. How did they carve all of those heads? I do not know, but it was awesome. We took tons of pictures, and after Bayon we were feeling tired. So we had lunch.
Down the road was Bayon, which is where all the pillars with a face carved on each side is. That was crowded but also really cool. How did they carve all of those heads? I do not know, but it was awesome. We took tons of pictures, and after Bayon we were feeling tired. So we had lunch.
We then went to a place called the elephant terrace, which is a cool place where they said that back in the day they would prepare all of their war elephants for battle. The carvings along the way were cool.
Then we went to a temple that was really tall and seemed like a Aztec style temple. It was called Ta Kaev - also very cool and steep in climbing up the steps to the top.
We then went over to Ta Prum which was probably my favorite. It is the one where they filmed Tomb Raider, and it has huge trees growing all over the temples and buildings. IT WAS AWESOME. The roots on the trees were going everywhere, and it was cool.
We met an Israeli couple who was impressed that we had long-sleeve shirts on. They took a picture with us calling us their "long sleeved heroes".
Across the road was a big lake called Srah Srong, which is where the say that the King used to bathe back during the Angkor time.
Seim Reap and the sunset
Sunset
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