South Gate at Angkor Thom

Day 2: Finally I am super excited that we are going to visit Angkor Wat. Mostly people just know Cambodia for Angkor Wat, but Angkor Wat is only one part Angkor Archaeological Park. Angkor Archaeological Park is mainly divided in to 2 parts:

1. Angkor Thom (大吴哥)


2. Angkor Wat (小吴哥)

What makes Angkor Wat so famous is because it was the best-preserved temple at the site.

Big picture of Angkor Archaeological Park at the ticket counter.

Here is the ticket for Angkor. We brought the 3 day pass for USD20. 1 day pass is USD20 while 7 day pass is USD60, which must be used consecutively. The ticket include a photograph of the owner. The photograph is taken at the counter. Some destinations are apart, so regular checks for the pass are performed at almost all sites within the park. So it is wise to carry a plastic protactable tag to hang on your neck. Locals does not need to buy ticket.
There is night ticket you can buy seperately which you can enter after 5pm. There are spots light set up at night at some selected places.

Note take from one destination to the other destination is not near. Before that I thought that I need to walk thru the whole park, which is impossible. The are alot of tuk tuk car beside. Just hired one of them. We travel using the van that the tour guide provided.

Angkor Thom itself have 4 gates - north, south, east, west. Usually visitors enter thru the south gate as it is the most complete statues. The gate consist of 4 faces of buddha in each side.

Me infront of the South Gate. Busses, van, tuk tuk can enter these gates.
Each gate layout is the same. There is a 5 head snake statue on the begining of the bridge, one in the left, another in the right. The snake statue is a good prosperity sign for cambodians.
After the 5 head snake, it is followed by 54 statue of God on the left hand side of the bridge and 54 statue of devil on the right hand side of the bridge.

According to the tour guide, each statue have different face expression. And those whiter statue are those re-build statue where those dirty old statue are those orginal statue. So most me picture are with those ancient old statue.

Elephants are great helpers of the khmer. I can see carving of 3 elephants on the side of the Angkor Thom gates. And real elephants walking around the south gates. There are available for tour.

IT's just the begining of the Angkor Trip. After snaping picture, we hop on to the van and looking forward for our next destination.

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