Temples around Angkor Thom and Bayon

Stairs looking down at Phnom Bakeng.

My second day of temple hopping around Angkor included the smaller temples surrounding Angkor Thom before looping back to Angkor Thom to see Bayon. I decided to save the big one, Angkor Wat, for my last day on my temple pass. We rented bicycles and biked the 8km to Angkor Thom. The first two temples of the day included Bakse Chamkrong and Phnom Bakheng.

Kristina and I before the climb up.

Phnom Bakheng is this massive, tall temple with one of the scarier sets of stairs I was on that day. Climbing up was a hands and feet operation. Once at the top, I have to admit I felt like a champ for being brave enough to climb up the crumbling staircase. Kristinga and I climbed up the East staircase and directly at the top of the stairs, there was a tiny alter with a reclining Buddha inside. It's amazing to me that they built these huge stone structures for such tiny alters and statues. The view from the top of here was of the tree tops of the encroaching jungle.

Entrance to Ta Prohm

The rest of the morning was spent biking through the temple complex and stopping at countless smaller temples all leading the way to Ta Prohm, quite possibly my favorite temple in Cambodia. Ta Prohm is also known as the Tomb Raider temple because some scenes from the movie were filmed here. When restoring the temple, archeologists made the decision to leave some of the trees that had grown up out of the temples and walls. The result is a breathtaking, spectacular place that seems like it should be out of an animated other world movie.

Back when this temple was at it's prime, 80,000 people either worked to maintain or attend temple here. Now, the temple has been overrun by trees and their roots. As a result, many old corridors and other areas are impassible because of the fallen stone blocks. I just don't have the words to describe how magical this place was. It was awesome to be able to catch a glimpse of what the temples must have looked like when they were 'rediscovered' back in the early 1900s. Explorers must have had their breath taken away!

Entrance gate to Bayon.

After a quick lunch at a roadside cafe, I split from Kristina and Becks to make the loop back towards Angkor Thom so I could see Bayon, the temple with all the faces. The entrances into the Angkor Thom complex are these huge causeways with massive stone gates at the end that have a four faces carved into them. Along the causeway are statues locked in the thousand year tug of war between good and evil. Riding up this causeway towards the South gate is a bit of an intimidating experience as this massive stone face looks down upon you.

The face in the stone is said to be the face of the compassionate Buddha, but has a strong resemblance to King Jayavarman VII,  the king who had the temples and complex built.  From this South gate to the temple of Bayon, it's about a kilometer. The road leading to Bayon is surrounded by forests containing a lot of monkeys hanging out on the side of the road, just looking for some sort of trouble to get into.

Faces of one of the towers.

If Ta Prohm is my favorite temple, then Bayon comes in at a close second. As I parked my bike and walked up the stairs leading to the interior of the temple, I was awestruck at the number of faces looking down on me in what seemed to be some sort of ancient smirk. In Bayon, there are 216 'smiling' or in my opinion, smirking faces looking down at visitors. Each tower has four faces on it, each one facing one of the cardinal directions. I could not imagine being a peasant when the kingdom of Jayavarman was at it's height. It would have been terrifying to have come across this and had the feeling of always being watched.

Bayon from the front. How many faces can you see?