Siem Reap is one of the most visited cities in the world when it comes to exploration of UNESCO World Heritage sites. Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia are great example of heritage and wonderful architecture. One can spend multiple days in this heritage site to explore these different temples spread across multiple acres of forest. I am sure you must have heard of temples Bayon, Ta Prohm, the main temple of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. But apart from these, there are hundreds of more heritage sites within this huge compound. We have shared about a few which can easily be done in a day as they are close to the main places we have shared above. So if you love walking around, you will find these smaller places much more interesting and are not as crowded as you may find the main temples of Angkor Wat. This blogpost is sharing about one such option which is known as 3 storey Royal Palace in Angkor Thom area.
There are 3 kinds of tickets available for travelers coming to explore Angkor Wat in Siem Reap -
1 Day ticket - $37
3 Days ticket - $62
7 Days ticket - $72
Some of the main ways to commute within Angkor Wat at -
Tuk-tuk,
cycles on rent,
Taxi (people prefer Tuk-tuk over taxies in Cambodia),
Tour vans/buses.
We hired a tuk-tuk for the day and our hotel 'Chateau D'Angkor la Residence' arranged it for us by charging $15. Usually they tell you in advance about the things they would take you to. How much time you spend at each place is on your wish, so Tuk-Tuk is with you but you have almost fixed itinerary. As we had planned for Siem Reap, we spent one day at Angkor World Heritage site and explore the main temple of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ba Puan, Elephant Terrace, Phimphimeanakas & some structures on our way.
The first photograph of the blogpost and the above photograph show Royal Palace inside Angkor Thom, Siem Reap and one can easily access this through well paved paths. When you are at Royal Palace, you can walk around it but can't climb this one as it's structurally in a weak state and it's not recommended to fiddle with it's current state. The Phimeanakas is in shape of a three stepped pyramid and this name means to “Celestial Palace”. There is a temple located in the center of the Royal Palace enclosure, which was used by King Jayavarman VII as his private temple and after that many experts gave special names and descriptions to this place. It also used to be referred as 'the Golden Tower'.
This pyramid structure consists of 3 tiers and for obvious reasons the level above is smaller than the one at base making a good looking pyramid. Base of this pyramid is 35 meters long and 28 meters wide, the upper platform is 30 meters long by 23 meters wide.
On top of the pyramid has small galleries as you can see in the photograph. If you look closely the top-most part of the pyramid is of different colour and may be because of different stone used and probably there was gap when top most part was built.
There are many such structures around Angkor Wat. We loved walking around and missed one thing. We could have packed our food, snacks and drinks to do a picnic during lunch time around one of those. We could have utilised the lunch time while being in the forest. This is something which I realised after coming back from Cambodia. There are many such things you learn from your travel and this blog is for sharing those learnings with all of you when you plan your own trip to these places.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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