3rd Day - The Grand Circuit and Phnom Krom

Grand Circuit

We left early morning to avoid the heat as well as the crowds. We decided to visit the temples along the “Grand Circuit”. Overall, there were less visitors compared to the day before.

We might even say, that the Angkor Wat Archeological Sites we had visited up till now, had less visitors than what we had initially expected (probably due to corona).

Preah Khan, Grand Circuit

The most beautiful temple of today was certainly the Preah Khan with green and red colours. It was a big complex, built at the end of the 12th century.

The temple reminded us of the Ta Prohm temple that we had visited the day before. The site seemed to be in a reasonably good shape.

It was just impossible to stop taking pictures, the entire site was so picturesque. Behind every corner there was a new photo opportunity. The temple definitely deserves a place in our top 3.

Neak Pean

Neak Pean, a Buddhist temple, has been built on an artificial island in the middle of Javatataka Baraya (a reservoir filled with water). The reflections in the water were very beautiful.

Ta Som Temple, Grand Circuit

Ta Som, built at the end of the 12 century, was one of the smaller temples along the circuit. This temple was not so frequently visited. We noticed this immediately when we entered, because we had the entire site for ourselves.

For those that have time, it is really worth a stop, especially if you want to see bas-reliefs that are well preserved. Do not forget to walk through till the end to see the fig tree strangling one of the gates… we did not and we regret it now…

East Mebon Temple, Grand Circuit

East Mebon, a temple built in the 10th century was dedicated to Shiva. I named it the elephants temple due to the lovely elephant statues. But it could also have been the lion temple :-).

Banteya Kdei, Grand Circuit

This was another quiet temple, built at the end of the 12th century. It had served as a monastery in the past and consisted of a network of rooms.

Sunset at Phnom Krom

Stairs to Phonm Krom — *Stairs to Phnom Krom*

We return to the hotel around 11h30 because it was getting a bit too hot. In the afternoon we wanted to have another sunset experience. So we drove to the Phnom Krom temple while passing a number of rural villages and hammock bars (yes they exist) and a lotus nursery.

When we arrived at the temple site, we had to climb what seemed to be an endless number of stairs. With a couple of photo stops, I finally managed to reach the top, or that was what I thought.

We had to continue our climb via a hilly road and then we saw that there were again a whole series of stairs. We did not immediately see the end so we were a bit discouraged… We were even wondering if it had been such a good idea to do this on foot.

Eventually, we reached the temples and we were glad that we had not given up :-).

Behind the ruins we had to descend a bit from the steep mountain where we found a place for the sunset. It was not easy to find a place to sit. We had a view of the rice fields and the Tonle Sap lake.