Tomb Raiders

Day 82: Siem Reap (K). “You had me fooled!”, I joked to Karen as she did her best Lara Croft impression at the spot where Angelina Jolie famously picked that jasmine flower before falling through the earth in the 2001 film adaptation of the video game series.

Visiting two of Siem Reap's big hitters: we marvelled at Angkor Wat; the largest and most breathtaking of the monuments at Angkor – widely believed to be the largest religious structure on earth and Ta Prohm; the most atmospheric ruin, completely consumed by the jungle and looking very much the same way today as it did when European explorers first stumbled upon it in the mid 19th Century.

Walking across Angkor Wat's sandstone causeway spanning the 600 foot wide moat, through the outer walls and emerging on the inner causeway was a spine-tickling moment for Karen and me. Covering almost 500 acres, the scale of this site is mind-blowing and enabled the Khmer to give full expression to religious symbolism; representing as it did, a microcosm of the Hindu universe: The central tower being Mount Meru (the home of the gods), surrounded by smaller peaks (the mountain ranges), bounded by the continents (the courtyards) and the oceans (the extensive moat). At close quarters, the detail inside the temple was exquisite with over half a mile of bas-reliefs and over 3,000 carved apsaras (heavenly nymphs). Never completely finished, inscriptions tell us that the construction of Angkor Wat involved over 300,000 craftsmen and 6,000 elephants over an initial 37 year period. “Imagine trying to pin down a tradesman to do your loft conversation at the same time they were building this lot!”, I joked to Karen.