Cambodia, Day 3, Part 6: The Overgrown Temples of Ta Prohm, Ta Som, and Preah Khan

I ended my third day in Cambodia with a series of awesomely overgrown temples.

Ta Prohm was utterly amazing with massive trees that seemed not to differentiate stone architecture from soil. I also enjoyed seeing a long stream of red ants traversing one of the cables there for the temple's structural support.

Walls were no barriers to the adaptable roots of the jungle trees...

...nor were buildings.

There was a long slow line of tourists getting their pictures taken in front of this massive tree, so I opted to just take a picture with other people in it.

I loved the way the roots snaked along the grooves in the stone roof. 

 Continuing down the road sent me back past Pre Rup and Eastern Mebon, and this time I continued on the loop around Eastern baray, a now-dry artificial lake that once held about 50,000,000 cubic meters of water. The dominant theory as to why the Khmer society collapsed is that years of drought prevented their incredible water control systems from maintaining the region year round.

One the North side of the former body of water was the temple Ta Som, which also had some impressive trees on it...

... As did Preah Khan:

I also enjoyed the carvings and statues at Preah Khan. 

I finished the loop at Angkor Thom's North gate, and so traveled back through the walled city for one last look at Bayon as the sun started to set. 

Back in Siem Reap, I ate dinner at the overpriced (for Cambodia) Sugar Palm. I enjoyed pork with dripping veggies and fried spring rolls before an evening of journaling.