Chinese New Year - Part TWO - Angkor Thom & Ta Prohm

After Angkor Wat, we headed over to an even bigger temple, Angkor Thom, which housed a part called "Bayon" - probably my favourite aside from Beng Melea. The blank stone faces juxtaposed with the monks' brightly coloured robes was wonderful to photograph. We later headed to Ta Prohm, just east of Angkor Thom, and marveled at how God's creation has just taken over these massive man-made structures.

Welcoming us to Angkor Thom were more of these people
"Churning the Ocean of Milk" with this really long Naga.

What Angkor must have been like (elephants everywhere), with
what Angkor's like now (Tuk Tuks everywhere)


IMAGES OF BAYON:

There were lots and lots of very bright children all over the temples, selling everything from postcards to umbrellas to fans. These two below were so sweet - and got slightly sidetracked by some ancient stones and likely all the living creatures that were living beneath them!


We stopped for lunch at one of the stands in the temple area - all the tuk tuk drivers have linked with at least one owner so that they can sleep in the back in the hammocks while they wait for us tourists to finish traipsing about the temples.


Apparently this guy doesn't have any connections, cause he's fast asleep in his tuk-tuk. We had to push it out of the way to get our tuk-tuk out, but yet he never budged.

The local way of seeing the ruins: atop a pickup truck:

IMAGES OF TA PROHM: The Jungle Ruins

Just outside the temples sat this lovely mother and her
children.

This was our favourite part of our Ta Prohm trip. This cow wandered from who-knows-where through the ruins, and this guy decided the cow was a more likely customer than we were, and proceeded to sell the cow a guidebook about Angkor.

Then this little girl, with amazing English, proceeded to convince us to buy the cow... "1 Riel sir? 1 Riel for the cow?"