AngkorWat 06 - SGRunners: Day 2 - 16th December 2006 (Saturday)

[2.1 Sunrise at Angkor Wat] - Sotong

0300hrs: Wakey Wakey!!! My alarm went off at 3am..... *GASP* why so early? Silly me!!! I forgot that Cambodia is one hour ahead!!! So setting my Mobile Alarm at 4am means it's only 3am in Cambodia!!! What a Sotong I am!!!..... how to get back to sleep? DO is super efficient..... all washed up, changed and ready to go by 0415hrs.

0440hrs: The weather was cooling and refreshing, very windy indeed. We reach the pass office in no time and there were already quite a number of people there. Making the 3-day pass was simple, just hand them the photos and USD40 per pax. All they had to do was to put the photo and the pass in the laminating pocket and pass it through the laminating machine. Within seconds, the pass was ready!!!

Another shot of Angkor Wat later in the day, when there was more light. I remembered what Balasing told me about going to the left pond in front of Angkor Wat in order to get a good shot..... alas, seems like everybody knows about the secret!!! This is what the crowd looks like..... *glurp*

Brokie having a go with her camera, on the left is the lily pond in front of Angkor Wat. Lots of nice red lilies.

0645hrs: Time for breakfast!!! There were many stalls just lined along the left of Angkor Wat, beside the Lily pond. DO gamely treated everyone to breakfast..... Cambodian Coffee and Milo. We saw someone ate Egg Omelette on French Loaf.... looks interesting, but nobody tried it as we finished the breakfast we bought from Blue Pumpkin the night before.

After breakfast, we saw the the crowd near the lily pond as disappeared. So we took the opportunity to take a group photo.....

Hmmm... sombody's missing.... WHERE'S BROKIE AND VINCENT?!? *horrors* Okay.... we need to re-arrange ourselves (I think this joke is getting over-used... *sigh*.. NEXT!!!) Another shot with just the ladies only..... the MEN don't get it!!! Hmrph!!!

Here's another panaromic view of the main temple of Angkor Wat itself with part of the lily pond and part of the field, and part of the walk way leading to the main entrance.

This is supposedly once a library. A very small one at that. Most of the structures in Angkor comes with such small libraries just inside the main entrance. There are two more libraries with similar structures inside the main temple of Angkor Wat too.

The stairs leading up to the main temple of Angkor Wat has been overlaid by wooden steps. I can think of two reasons (1) to protect the original steps from being over-used (2) to make it easier for tourist to walk up the narrow and steep steps. And on the right is the exterior of the main temple of Angkor Wat, and also the third enclosure of Angkor Wat.

This is where the walls will tell stories, with exquisite engravings of different stories in each of the exterior walls, most of which comes from Hindu sources: the Ramayana and Mahabharata epics. The carved area is truly immense, and stretches to over 600m in length and 2m in height.

Along the way, we met a famous photographer and a famous model, see if you can identify them.

Okay not sure if this lady is a famous photographer or a famous model, but thought this shot looks nice so I took it.

Anyway, I continued climbing up the steep stairways of the Uppermost level of the temple, which carries the five towers and surrounding galleries. This final level is the highest and inner most part of Angkor Wat and is suppose to represents Mt. Meru where the God resides. View from the top *pant* *pant* The steps are real steep!!!!!

Anyway, more pictures of a statue of Buddha (I think) and one of the tower.

We found a nice window to take some artistic shots, model for a day? make that model for a minute!!! EXCUSEEE ME..... ARE YOU A MODEL?

Okay, so I look a bit like the guy in Da Vinci Code.... so sue me!!! (notice the peeping Tom at the bottom corner of the picture? arrgghh!!!)

Some internal architectures and sculptures that we can see in the interior of the upper level. Top left: Inner architecture of the temple. Top right: 3D sculpture found on the wall. Bottom left: Ancient "Window Grill" hee hee. Bottom right:Multiple corridors, common among the Angkor architecture.

Wonder what they are looking at? A bird? A plane? *gasp* SUPERMAN???

Now you know: Looking at everyone gingerly climbing down the steep and narrow stairways. Not only that, they are extremely uneven, also through wear and tear, you can see chips at some part of the stairway. Negotiating your way up and down takes alot of concentration and care. This is the stair way facing South and is the ONLY one with hand railing to aid climbers. For the adventurous, try the other 3 sides.

Of course, our Husband and Wife team also made it down the stairs safely.

Nice pose? SGRunners posing in Angkor Wat, calendar photo 2007. All looking stylo milo right? hee hee...... a group of tourists from China were so impress by our 'professionalism' that they engage our services to take photo for them.....

....... anyway, this is one of the five towers which represents Mt. Meru. Notice the steep stairs leading to the tower. That's the stairs we were refering to prior to this.

The interior of the Temple to lead the way towards the inner most sanctuary!!!

Here's the dark and eerie passage out of the main temple.... and Vincent not looking too please that he has to leave..... so many places to visit, so little time!!!