Cambodia Day 4: Power-packed Day 

5:00 am on a Sunday morning, a new day, a new sunrise - same sun, different place.

Srah Srang, which is located opposite Banteay Kdei, was built on a artificial lake in the 10th century and remodeled at the end of 12th century by Jayavarman VII. It was said to be used for ceremonies and royal baths. Well, we didn't find more than a handful of tourists watching sunrise here as compared to the crowd in Angkor Wat. There were many young pedlars who kept pestering us to buy their coffee and wares since the time we arrived. We also managed to spend a few minutes outside Banteay Kdei before adjourning for breakfast.

Our driver took us to a local place to have cheap but good breakfast - Cambodian pao, beef noodle soup, fried noodles, really yummy! And then, off to Banteay Srei, a 37km drive according to our driver. We made a little detour when we passed by Pre Rup, While some of us had to use the toilets, the rest of us took the opportunity to capture some Pre Rup shots.

Banteay Srei - an exquisite temple covered with beautiful, fine carvings on every inch of its walls and intricate figurines. It is classified as the "finest example of classical Khmer art". We could see many ropes being put up to keep tourists from standing too near the 1000-year old carvings. It is such a beautiful place for photography but the heat prevented us from staying too long. A few of us went shopping at some stalls outside the temple while the rest chose to cool-off by having iced coconut. Thank God for coconuts and ice! 

Then we left for a quick tour to Preah Khan, our last stop before a late lunch. We didn't spend much time at Preah Khan, only about 20 minutes (must be our record time in one place!) as we wanted to reserve our afternoon for Angkor Thom. Lunch was steamed white rice and stir-fried pineapple with pork, quite good actually, for all of us except Uncle Lee who had stir-fried beef and steamed rice.

Angkor Thom has five huge gates that led to the city - North, South, East, West and Victory Gate on the east. During our stay, we travelled between the South and Victory gates frequently. The main attractions at Angkor Thom are the Elephants' Terrace which we walked on, the Terrace of the Leper King (which we saw but did not walk on), Phimeanakas and Baphuon temples which we only took pictures from outside. But we did stand on the large open space, the terrace of the palace where the king used to check on his troops before they left for battles.

Located inside Angkor Thom, Bayon is a Buddhist temple that has 54 towers with carved faces on four sides and many bas-reliefs carved on its walls. Most of us climbed up the towers to get better angles of these carved faces, like the ones we saw in books and on website. On the way down those narrow steps, my hubby sprained his ankle. It was swollen after that, and prevented him from walking much more than he would have.

We made a 15-minute stop by the South Gate to take some evening shots. Then we headed out to the Angkor Balloon field as KK wanted to purchase his ticket for a hot-air balloon ride the next day. While we were there, we maximised our time by taking sunset shots, beautiful magenta skies. Photographers, never a moment to lose!

We headed back to the same stall for dinner and returned to our guest house like a bunch of farmers who had been working out in the fields all day.