Sky & Renee at Angkor

This trip was a re-visit to my four favourite temples in Angkor – Bayon, Angkor Wat, Preah Khan & Ta Phrom. The last time I visited Angkor was back in 2005. Back then, there was much fewer tourists than there is now. Most of the temples had this “free-roaming” element in them. So long as there are steps that lead to somewhere, you can climb them no matter how dangerous or steep they are. There were almost no barricades. Feels a lot like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. You can climb any pillar you want and crawl through any opening you see. Things are a little different now. Steep stairs are barricaded, there are some places you weren’t allowed to go to, man-made wooden platforms and stairs were erected. A tourist or two had perhaps taken a tumble and the Apsara authority (the folks who manages Angkor) decided to make it safer place for everyone. Although the “free-roaming” element is somewhat lost, the Angkor temples were still as majestic as ever. No one can take that away from them. I think the best experience I had was the shoot within Angkor Wat itself close to closing time (6pm). The place was so serene (all the tourists had gone home) and at the same time strangely grand so much so that it makes me wonder how it must have felt during the heydays of Khmer empire.