And we had thought we had seen our last temple...

Today we leave for the relaxing part of our holiday; to Phuket in Thailand and to a beautiful 5 star resort.

We were not flying until after 1pm so obviously, we had time to fit in another temple! It was 8am, we had checked out of our hotel and were on our way to the ancient city of Angkor Thom. According to the guide, this is the second most popular temple in Cambodia; the first being Angkor Wat and the third being Ta Prohm or the tomb raider temple. Angkor Thom actually translates as “big city” with the temple taking up one part of the complex; it was also thought to be home to almost 1 million people. 

It was only a 15 minute drive and the haze was starting to disappear; we arrived at the what was the last capital of the Khmer empire. We stopped at the gates of the city walls to walk across the bridge with the 108 statues, 54 good on one side  and 54 evil on the other, each side holding the sacred Naga snake. The gate had a tower with 4 faces depicting the four states of mind; benevolence, compassion, empathy and equanimity. Angkor Thom was built by the same king that built the tomb raider temple and Preah Khan, Jayavarman VII. He was one of the most important figures of the Khmer empire, resurrecting the empire after the Chams tried to invade, overseeing a conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism,  and creating the first known free healthcare system by building hospitals. After we passed under the gate, the driver met us on the other side to drive us to Bayon temple; it was about another half mile down the forest lined road. I vaguely mentioned this earlier, but every time we enter a complex, we have to show our tickets; security is pretty tight; we were asked twice because they forgot our faces.

The outside of the walls of the temple had carvings all around them; the top half depicted the war against the Cham invaders whereas the bottom carvings depicted every day life for the local people of the city. The temple originally had 54 towers, all with the four faces, but unfortunately only 30 or so remain today. Some of the temple has been restored, but there is still a lot to do; some of the statues have even been lost forever due to looting and general wear and tear over the years. Most of these temples lay undiscovered for large periods of time, some almost 400 years, so it is understandable that the forest has just grown in and around them. This temple was a little quieter than Angkor Wat, but there were a lot more monkeys looking for food and even drink; one wanted our guides water. 

We walked around the temple and into the compound for the royal palace; unfortunately nothing remains as it was believed it was made of wood and timber which has long since rotted away. We were starting to run out of time so unfortunately we couldn’t visit the next part of the city, the Baphuon. It marks the centre of the city and looks a bit like the pyramids in Egypt; it is actually to represent Mount Meru, the place where all the stone came from for Angkor Wat. The central tower is 43 metres high so we were partly happy that we didn’t have to climb all the steps. We even saw some of the excavation work being done in order to restore the city; it is very slow and, under the sun, hard work.

We planned to meet the driver at the other side of the complex so we continued walking; we walked down what is known as “The Terrace of Elephants.” It was supposedly used as a platform from which the king could view his returning army, watch elephants parading and fighting. Following on from this was the “Terrace of the Leper King,” no-one knows what this exactly represents; some say it could be one of previous kings statues who had leprosy and others say that it may represent the God of Death and that the terrace is the royal crematory. It is still being excavated and repaired (like almost all the other temples).

After we visited to our last and final temple, it was time to go to the airport; it was only a 15 minute drive away and we were pretty early but it’s definitely better than being late. We said our goodbyes to the driver and Tea, before heading to check-in. Unfortunately, we were so early, we had to hang about for an hour with only a Starbucks coffee shop; at least there was free WiFi. Eventually we checked in and were given a sticker to put on our t-shirts; we had no idea what they were for but as we were being sent to departures, we were told we had complimentary lounge access. We were both delighted, I’m not sure it lasted too long though. We skipped through security only to find the most basic lounge ever; the only good thing was that it was quiet, there was free wifi and they served chocolate milk and popcorn! 

We only had an hour or so before we boarded our flight to Bangkok and then onwards to Phuket. The flight was early and took 35 minutes and they even managed to serve us some food; a chicken sausage roll and orange jelly. Not the best, but we ate what we could; we were determined to go to the lounge when we arrived in Bangkok as we had a layover of over 3 hours. After a bit of confusion, we finally got through passport control and into the domestic terminal. I had already downloaded the lounge information so we headed to the Blue Ribbon lounge for a few hours of relaxation, wine and red curry, before our next flight.

Unfortunately, our flight to Phuket was delayed due to an emergency landing at the airport, not great when all we wanted to do was get to our luxury hotel and relax for the evening. But we eventually got going about 90 minutes later than planned. We were served a massive cashew nut toffee cake on the flight; that’s dessert from earlier sorted. As we came into land, it started to get quite turbulent; it wasn’t the best landing and there was a massive thud, but we made it. We collected our bags and were met in the arrivals hall by the company transferring us to our hotel.

It took 40 minutes, around some pretty steep roads, but we arrived at the hotel which is built into the side of a mountain. Security met as at the bottom of the hill, before we were ushered up some steps. We were then picked up in a golf cart which took us up to reception to check-in. Reception is basically a tree house but on stilts and overlooks the bay and Kamala beach; unfortunately, it was so dark, we couldn’t see too much. After handing over the passports and paying the usual deposit, we got back into the golf cart and headed to our clay pool villa, our home for the next 5 nights.