I’m dividing this day into chunks, because it’s mostly photographs
City Wall – It’s the classic “dig a moat & use the earth to build a wall” setup, for a square 3km a side. Apparently you can walk or cycle around the top of the wall; it’s certainly wide enough.
I think people were starting to get tired at this point. It was a hot day, with more walking and way more stair climbing than any sensible person would regularly do.
For a short people, Cambodians do not make short steps. Some of those things were like ship ladders, not quite vertical, but definitely more of a ‘climb up’ than a ‘step up’.
The guide was very into taking group photos, including one in the middle of this road with the gate as a background.
Up on top of the wall.
‘Banyan’ temple, through the trees.
There were baboons wandering around, just doing their thing & occasionally following people for a bit, presumably in case anything edible happened. There was also a something in a window, seen from the bus; Posture & movement made me think ‘cat’, but at that range the scale was wrong for the regular domestic variety.
Last stop was the temple on the hill, to watch the sunset. Of course, to do so, you need to walk up the hill.
And having climbed the hill, you then need to climb the temple.
It was mildly crowded up there, with some very nice views. Some people had brought tripods & professional camera gear, which maybe made the cloud-obscured sunset a bit of a shame.
As soon as the sun set behind that cloud bank there was a noticeable drift towards the exit. Not a rush, but a general meander by those folks who’d taken their pictures and didn’t want to go back down in the dark, myself included.
The guide had mentioned that there’s a second path up & down the hill, but suggested not using the second one, because it’s steeper & more challenging. On the way out there were people suggested that second path on the basis of it being less crowded, but I went with the longer option, because a rough clambering path at night doesn’t sound fun.
According to one of the group who’d come down it in the light, that was a good choice.
