Towering Ta Keo and Pre Rup

We bought a three-day pass for the visit. There were plenty to see - sunrise, sunset, ruins and plenty of climbing up steep stairways during exploration of the famed ruins of Angkor. Ta Keo and Pre Rup, almost as grand as Angkor Wat, these towering structures were dedicated to Hindu god Shiva.

The plainly decorated temple-mountain of Ta Keo was actually incomplete and later abandoned.

Nevertheless, even as it is, Ta Keo was still impressive. In fact it actually makes it look all the more massive.

A steep but still manageable stairway - getting down was in fact tougher.

Had it been finished, Ta Keo would undoubtedly have been one of the finest temples at Angkor.

Ta Keo is the first temple built entirely in sandstone and as such serves as a milestone in Khmer history. Enormous blocks of stone were cut to a regular size and placed in position.

The local kids that I met halfway up the second tier of the temple complex.

Pre Rup, another temple mountain, the altogether five towers of the temple is even more impressive and seemed more ancient. It might as well be one of the sites for the Indiana Jones project.

The architectural design of Pre Rup is superb and somewhat a temple of fine balance, scale and proportion.

Pre Rup means 'turning the body' and Cambodians have always regarded this temple as having funerary associations.

A gate leading towards the temple complex.

Why not a book to show the present state temple ruins and how it looks like some one thousand years ago.

Writings on the temple wall - some act of vandalism ?

Inside one of the towers - an impression of divine light from Heaven.

The korean girl that was traveling alone. Am I stalking her ? She was pretty I must say.