Our tuktuk driver and tour guide, Sarath (who speaks very good English btw) suggested that we take the Angkor Complex tour the first thing the next morning which everyone agreed to. We have to be up by 3am the following day so we were not able to go out of the hotel to get some grub or even check out Pub Street. We just cleaned up and went straight to bed.
Our third stop for this Angkor Complex temple run is the most famous of them all: Ta Phrom. You have probably seen this in some contemporary media especially that this location was highly featured in movie: Lara Croft: Thomb Raider.
Though it was quite hard to take a photo at its most iconic spot without tourists flocking that nook below the tree growing through the ruins. We just patiently waited. Also when we were there a lot of the areas are being fixed. You can see a lot of huge blocks of rocks scattered around. I actually find that an alluring feature of this particular temple.
We only got to visit these three major temples since we were crunched with time. Some of them were temporarily closed from the public due to ongoing restoration/stabilization projects. Though we got to pass by a couple other temples while driving around the Angkor Complex. Well I think not being able to see all or most of the temples gives me a huge reason to go back. And I really want to go back very very soon.
Our third stop for this Angkor Complex temple run is the most famous of them all: Ta Phrom. You have probably seen this in some contemporary media especially that this location was highly featured in movie: Lara Croft: Thomb Raider.
Ta Prohm is the modern name of the temple at Angkor, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia, built in the Bayon style largely in the late 12th and early 13th centuries and originally called Rajavihara. Located approximately one kilometer east of Angkor Thom and on the southern edge of the East Baray, it was founded by the Khmer King Jayavarman VII as a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and university.
Unlike most Angkorian temples, Ta Prohm is in much the same condition in which it was found: the photogenic and atmospheric combination of trees growing out of the ruins and the jungle surroundings have made it one of Angkor's most popular temples with visitors. UNESCO included Prasat Ta Prohm on the World Heritage List in 1992. Today, it is one of the most visited complexes in Cambodia’s Angkor region.
After the fall of the Khmer Empire in the 15th century, the temple of Ta Prohm was abandoned and neglected for centuries. When the effort to conserve and restore the temples of Angkor began in the early 21st century, the École française d'Extrême-Orient decided that Ta Prohm would be left largely as it had been found, as a "concession to the general taste for the picturesque." According to pioneering Angkor scholar Maurice Glaize, Ta Prohm was singled out because it was "one of the most imposing (temples) and the one which had best merged with the jungle, but not yet to the point of becoming a part of it". Nevertheless, much work has been done to stabilize the ruins, to permit access, and to maintain "this condition of apparent neglect."
The trees growing out of the ruins are perhaps the most distinctive feature of Ta Prohm. Most of them are so huge and their roots have grown into some of the temple structures. I felt like Lara Croft/Angelina Jolie exploring the ruins of Ta Phrom sans the tank top and short shorts (since such attire is not allowed inside the sacred temple grounds, got called out by one of the guards because I removed my shawl for a few minutes).
We only got to visit these three major temples since we were crunched with time. Some of them were temporarily closed from the public due to ongoing restoration/stabilization projects. Though we got to pass by a couple other temples while driving around the Angkor Complex. Well I think not being able to see all or most of the temples gives me a huge reason to go back. And I really want to go back very very soon.
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