Angkor Thom - The Great City

We wandered through the remains of Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom under the watchful gaze of 216 giant stone faces.  It was unsettling to be in the midst of such an alien culture.  Angkor Thom seemed a surreal movie set, not a city that was once home to tens of thousands of people.  We tried to imagine how the tradespeople and farmers felt who walked there ten centuries before, watched over by these same omnipresent faces.

Angkor Thom, "great city", was the last major capital city of the Khmer empire before it went into decline.  Daily life and epic battles are depicted on long bas-relief carvings.  A mother gives birth and navies clash, bringing stories from a thousand years ago into the present.

We bought a guidebook for Alexa and she was entranced by the details.  We paused to have our photo taken with Apsara dancers in costume (for a $1 charge).  Our guide encouraged us to take photos mimicking a kiss on the lips of one of the giant faces.  Cheesy but still entertaining after a long trek up the temple steps.

the south entrance into the city

demons guarded to right side of the bridge, soldiers the other side

many of the heads were looted by Thai soldiers in battles hundreds of years ago, and some found their way to museums in Bangkok.  This is a replica.

midwife

naval battle

reading the guidebook to try to figure out what the mural was about

near the pinnacle of the tower in the center of the city

the king's bath

the spot where the king would watch processions and elephant races

by Nat and Lynn