Vlog #10: Contiki Big Indochina Adventure : Siem Reap, Cambodia

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Remember that blog post not long ago about me not having a bucket list? Well, I have revisited that thought and decided: yes I actually do have a bucket list. It’s not a very original one, however it is a pretty epic one.

Thus I present,

Nadine’s 15 Wonders of the World Bucket List

1. Great Wall of China – China
2. Macchu Picchu – Peru
3. Angkor Wat – Cambodia
4. Taj Mahal – India
5. Petra– Jordan
6. Christ the Redeemer –  Brazil
7. Chichen Itza – Mexico
8. Colosseum – Italy
9. Great Pyramid of Giza – Eygpt
10. Acropolis of Athens – Greece
11. Hagia Sophia – Turkey
12. Stonehenge – United Kingdom
13. Moai, Easter Island – Chile
14. Neuschwanstein – Germany
15. Eiffel Tower – France

If you recall, my first “wonder” being The Great Wall of China, followed by Macchu Picchu, and now Angkor Wat; even though some lists differ on whether or not it’s one of the seven.

Angkor Wat

Alright, moving on to todays post, Angkor Wat! I was so excited to see this since I have a thing for engineering marvels and Angkor Wat is definitely one of them. Would you hold it against me if I told you this was what I was looking forward to all Southeast Asia trip? Yup, I am a nerd that watches to much Discovery Channel.

Anyways, I hope you love temples too because we have three to cross off today.

We were up nice and early for sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Although the cloud cover had me worried at the beginning,  we still saw a pretty spectacular sunrise. I attempted to do some kind of time-lapse photography; however, realistically I should not have  tried without a tripod.

After sunrise we got a chance to wonder around Angkor Wat, learn about it’s history, and take some photos.

By the way, when visiting Angkor Wat make sure you wear hard-core temple dress; knees and shoulders cover. Since to get up to the top most part of the temple you have to be covered.  I felt really bad for those people who missed the memo on that, since it was by far the highlight and best view.

Bayon Temple

After a quick breakfast back at the hotel it was onto our next temple, the Bayon Temple. This temple was part of the Angkor Thom City which encompasses several temples from the Angkor Empire, including Angkor Wat as the main.

Bayon temple is mostly famous for all the faces carved in the stone. However, unlike Angkor Wat which is held in such esteem and protected so diligently, it seem quite the opposite here. People were rather disrespectful, they would climb and sit anywhere, touch the carvings and statues, and just yap really loud. Yes it’s a tiny temple in comparisons to Angkor Wat, but still it’s still worth respect.

Ta Prohm Temple

Following the Bayon Temple was the Ta Prohm Temple, my favorite of the three, even more than Angkor Wat!

I absolutely love jungle temples, it’s a photographer’s and videographer’s dream! The lighting with sunset- perfect!

And that is actually exactly what we found there; a group of photographers on some sort of photo shoot. I actually managed to snag a photo of their Buddhist monk models, hehehe.

I seriously could spend all day running around this place; words cannot even describe. Maybe my love for all thing fantasy is why I enjoyed this temple so much. Regardless, hundreds of photos later, and I still wouldn’t be able to capture the true beauty of Ta Prohm.