Saturday, September 9th, 2023
This morning we checked out of our hotel and went to visit Ta Prohm temple. It was used for a couple of scenes in the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie.
It was built in 1186 and was a Buddhist temple.
We entered at the West entrance of Ta Prohm and walked to the East Entrance.
As we were walking we passed a group of ants that we were told to not let crawl on us because they would bite. We all steered clear!
The trees(Fig, Banyon & Kapok) and their roots had taken over much of the area and made it creepy as you walked around the grounds.
Records showed that Ta Prohm was home to more than 12,500 people which included 18 high priests and 615 dancers. More than 800,000 people who lived in the surrounding villages provided services and supplies to the temple.
It was a temple of towers, closed courtyards, and narrow corridors. Many of the corridors were impassable with piles of stone blocks dislodged by the roots of trees.
Bas-reliefs on walls were covered with lichen, moss and creeping plants.
Our guide pointed out that one of the wall reliefs that dinosaurs were carved back in the 12th century! It looked like a type of stegosaurus.
After the temple we visited the Sihanouk-Angkor Museum. The museum opened in 2008.
A giant Buddha sat at the entrance to the museum.
It had a collection of 274 Buddha statues.
The “Thousand Buddha” pillar had 1,008 small carvings of Buddha meditating and it covered all four sides.
Our next stop was the airport to check-in for our flight to Hanoi. We flew on Vietnam Airlines.
When we landed in Hanoi it was close to 8:00 PM and by the time we picked up our luggage and boarded our bus to the hotel it was after 9:00 PM. The traffic and motorbikes was still very heavy!
We had a good view of Hanoi from our hotel room!
Tomorrow we would be exploring Hanoi.
