Tuk tuks are a primary way tourists get from place to place within Siem Reap and travel the 30 minutes from the city to Angkor Archeological Park. Our favorite tuk tuk driver was Hongda who transported us on the two mornings we visited the ancient ruins.

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Below is a brief picture summary of four of the 10 temples we saw during our visits to the archeological park.

Ta Prohm – This is one of the most well-recognized temples in the park because Angelina Jolie filmed scenes here for her 2001 film Tomb Raider. As we walked through the temple we heard English speaking tourists say “Oh, I recognize this area from the movie!” Some of the current distinctive features of this temple built in 1186 are very large trees growing out of and above the walls with roots cascading down and almost “strangling” the stones. King Jayavarman VII established this temple to honor his mother.

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Bayon – This temple, also featured in Tomb Raider, includes over 200 very large serene stone faces on the 50 or so towers. We thought some of the faces looked happy, while others looked kind of sad.

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Prasat Kravan – Most temples in Angkor Archeological Park were built by kings. This one, however, was founded by a dignitary or priest so it’s considered a private temple. The name means cardamom temple and it was built in 921, with restoration work completed about 20 years ago. Even though this temple was quite a bit smaller than most of the others, we still found it quite interesting that the bas-reliefs were carved right into the brick. This is the only temple in the park where this type of carvings can be found.

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Preah Khan – Like most temples in the archeological park, Preah Khan was surrounded by a moat and the temple area encompasses 140 acres. Jayavarman VII, a Buddhist King, built this temple in 1191 and dedicated it to his father. Preah Khan means sacred sword. Because of so much deterioration it was hard for us to visualize what some parts of the temple looked like years ago. Restoration work is underway, which is great for future visitors.

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