Angkor Temples

You have a choice to buy a 1 day, 3 day or 7 day pass to the temples. The kids and I decided on the 3 day pass and R decided just to do the 1 day pass since we saw the temples 15 years ago. There are two ‘circuits’ that the tuk tuk drivers take you on – the small and the big/grand. On the map below, the red line represents the small circuit and the green line the big circuit.

There are many other temples that are further out that you can visit with the pass, but you need to pick and choose which ones because they are not in the main complex.

Gates

Whether you are doing the Small or Grand circuit, you enter the Angkor complex via the South Gate. The gate is absolutely gorgeous – they have restored many of the statues holding the snake leading up to the gate. The gate has faces which is iconic of the Angkor temples.

South gate:

There are 5 gates in total in the Angkor complex: South, North, West, Victory Gate (for the King and Victories in battle), Gate of the Dead (East gate). We passed through the South, North and Victory:

Grand Circuit

We decided to do the grand circuit first because R wanted to do the small circuit but wanted to go on the second day. Here are the temples we visited on the Grand Circuit:

(If you’d like more information on any of the temples on this page, this website has good details on all the temples: https://helloangkor.com/attractiontag/angkor-grand-circuit/ )

Preah Khan

This is not actually a temple but was a royal residence. The complex is one of my favourites and has tons of passages / hallways and courtyards. It was built in the late 12th century by King Jayavarman VII.

Passageways / corridors:

Carvings – the complex is full of beautiful carvings everywhere you look.

Courtyard – wandering through the passageways leads you to various courtyards with more buildings.

In the center of the complex, is an image of the Queen (Jayavarman VII’s queen) which is still worshipped today.

Neak Poan

This temple was erected on an island in a man-made lake. Originally, people had to take a boat out to the temple, but now there is a walkway. This temple was associated with cleansing and washing and was only for religious monks and the royal family.

Ta Som

This temple is smaller, but very pretty. Again, you get the gate entry to the temple with the iconic faces.

East Mebon

This is an older temple, built in the 10th century under King Rajendravarman (944 – 968 AD). This temple is built in the quincunx pattern typical of many of the temples in the Angkor complex (with 5 pillars like a domino or the 5 in cards – with 4 in the corners and one central one). This temple was originally built at the centre of a massive reservoir (it’s been dry now for centuries), but it would have been an island back in the day. What I really liked about this temple were the elephant statues on each corner.

Pre Rup

This is another older temple built in the mid 10th century. This temple has a lot of steep steps and it was so hot that day (35 C and very high humidity), I let the kids climb to the top of this one while I sat in the shade. Anyway, I did climb this one 15 years ago, so I think it’s a good excuse!

Banteay Kdei

This temple is normally part of the small circuit, but our tuk tuk driver asked if we wanted to stop so we did. This temple is smaller and there was also another one across the street.

This is another temple built in the 12th century (like most temples in the complex) under King Jayavarman VII. Since it was built under this king, of course, the temple has the iconic faces. The temple had some really nice features and carvings.

Srah Srang

This is not really a temple, but more of a platform to the central lake / reservoir.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the temples. The prices were really expensive here – about 8-9 USD for what we were paying 1 USD for in town! But, we eventually found one that was sort of reasonable and the kids and I shared 2 meals.

And that concludes day 1 of templing. The next day, we brought R along and did the small circuit.

Small Circuit

Angkor Wat

This temple is the crowning glory of the Angkor complex and of King Jayavarman VII. It is massive and takes a good couple of hours to walk around. It starts with a walkway over the moat to the first wall / gate building.

From the first building (see middle image above), there is then another long walkway to the temple.

Once you reach the middle of the temple, you can climb up some steep stairs into the central pillar where there is quite a nice view looking back to the entrance building (see third image below).

One of the most spectacular things at Angkor Wat is the carved wall that completely surrounds the temple, totalling 520 meters in total! We actually ended up coming back on our 3rd templing day just to look more closely at these carvings. Most of the walls detail various Hindu battles that various gods were involved in (mostly Shiva), but one of the walls also depicts the Hindu heavens and hells. (If you are interested, you can read more about the walls here: https://helloangkor.com/attractions/angkor-wat-the-bas-relief-galleries/)

As you can see from the image above, the carvings are from floor to ceiling and the photos really do don’t them justice, but here are some close ups of some of the scenes.

As you leave the temple, the ask you to exit via a side path where there are a lot of monkeys. Many of the monkeys had babies.

Bayon

This is one of my favourite temples (and maybe even my favourite temple) in the Angkor complex. This temple has tons of faces on it and the hallways are like a maze winding you around and around but everywhere you look are more faces (there are 173 faces in total). You can just imagine what this temple would have looked like painted. Some say that the faces are different representations of King Jayavarman VII himself represented as Buddhist deities whereas others say that they are the faces of the deities themselves. Either way, it’s pretty cool!

This temple is located in the center of the ancient walled city of Angkor Thom.

This temple also has some interesting wall carvings that depict various wars that the Khmer empire had with the Champa to the east (remember My Son Sanctuary in Vietnam?) and the Chinese in the north.

Elephant Terrace

Staying within the ancient city of Angkor Thom is, is this famous wall and terrace. Half of the remaining wall depicts monsters holding up the wall and the other half is a chain of elephants. I particularly like the elephant decorations near the staircases with the long trunks. This terrace used to front the royal palace and was also a causeway leading to the Victory gate (in the east).

Terrace of the Leper King

The Elephant Terrace wall leads to the Terrace of the Leper King. It got its name from an 8th century sculpture that was discovered at the site of a Hindu god Yama (King of death). Somehow this sculpture became known as the Leper King. The terrace has tons of interesting carvings or royalty and palace life as well as a variety of gods.

From here, we drove out of Angkor Thom via the Victory gate to the next temple, Thommanon.

Thommanon

This is a small temple, but had some nice features.

Chau Say Tevoda

This temple is directly across the street from Thommanon and is the sister temple.

By this point of the day, we were really feeling the heat – and we had just finished all our water that we brought and the water the tuk tuk driver had brought in his cooler! But, we had 2 more temples to see…

Ta Keo

This temple was verticle with a lot of very steep steps going up… The kids convinced me to go up to the top with them (R stayed down) and after coming down again, I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Not sure the climb was worth it, wasn’t the best temple.

Ta Prohm

This is also known as the Tomb Raider temple because some of the Tomb Raider movie was filmed there. This place was actually a Buddhist monastery. What’s really cool here are the really massive fig trees which unfortunately have caused a lot of destruction of the temple.

End of Day 2 and the small circuit.

Further afield

A few days later, we decided to do our 3rd day of templing. We did 2 new temples, and then revisited Angkor Wat and Bayon.

The tuk tuk driver we hired was crazy. He drove like a complete lunatic and had no idea where he was going. So, we ended up inadvertently getting a tour of the surrounding villages. However, the tuk tuk broke down in a village in the middle of nowhere…

He drove way too fast and often in the wrong lane. We were holding on for dear life and saying our last “I love yous”.

After ‘fixing’ the moped and driving all around asking villagers for directions, we finally made it to the first temple.

Phnom Bok

This temple was located at the top of a large hill. It was about a 100 meter steep walk over scree-type rocks to the bottom of the staircase where the security informed me that it was 633 steps up!! Yikes, in this heat, that is an effort. Once at the top of the staircase, there was another steep path and then a shack where some monks were living and then the temple. The temple was mostly just ruins and not really worth the climb up, but the view from the top of the staircase was nice.

After we left this temple, the tuk tuk driver got lost again (even though we drove past the next temple earlier). But, eventually, after several more scenic tours, we found the next temple.

Banteay Samre

This was a really nice little temple. It had some great carvings and architectural aspects.

We really loved all the temples that we visited in the Angkor complex. I wanted to also do Banteay Srei, but didn’t get enough time. And, I wanted to go to Mount Kulen, but it wasn’t within our budget for the 4 of us.