With our trip yesterday offering an introduction to Angkor Wat, our visits to a number of different temples today helped us to understand the size and breadth of the Angkor Wat temple complex.
Our first stop of the day was at Ta Prohm, a temple made famous for its use in the movie, ''Tomb Raider''.
Located in a dense jungle, the temple is a blend of natural and man- made beauty with the roots of 400 hundred year old trees gripped tightly around the temples like a claw grabbing its prey. This location allowed for some fantastic photo ops and was best described by Hooney who said the best way to describe this place is,"......WOW!". The group agreed that he had summed up the experience quite eloquently.
A very short distance away was Angkor Thom. The name translates to ''Great City'' and it certainly lived up to its reputation. At 9 km squared or 900 hectares, Angkor Thom is considerably larger than Angkor Wat, so much so that we needed to get off our highway coach and board smaller buses that could fit through the gates of the walled city/temple and drive us the 1.5km to the centre of the complex. There we visited the Terrace of the Leper King and the Bayon Temple, complete with its 214 smiling faces on the towers.
At Bayon, many of the group took turns "kissing the Buddha" and got some other great pics as well.
We took a break for lunch and after we all sat down to eat, we realized that fatigue had set in and a change of plans was required. Instead of proceeding on to our next temple, we decided to return to the hotel for a couple of hours of ''R and R" so that we would be ready for our trek to the summit of Bakheng Hill Temple to see the evening sunset.
Back on the buses at 5 p.m., we arrived at the base of Bakheng Hill and after walking through the gauntlet of street vendors, we made the winding trek to the top of Bakheng Hill, where we then climbed the steep stairs to the temple. All this walking was well worth the effort as we were offered a panoramic view of all of Angkor Wat and witnessed a beautiful sunset.
This concluded the sight seeing portion of our trip. Bright and early tomorrow morning we will set out for Phnom Penh.
Located in a dense jungle, the temple is a blend of natural and man- made beauty with the roots of 400 hundred year old trees gripped tightly around the temples like a claw grabbing its prey. This location allowed for some fantastic photo ops and was best described by Hooney who said the best way to describe this place is,"......WOW!". The group agreed that he had summed up the experience quite eloquently. 
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