Sadly, it was a feeling similar to poking your head through the sun gate at Machu Picchu and seeing the ancient ruins for the first time after four days of hiking the Inca Trail.

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After meeting up with the archeologist guide, visitors take a cycling tour (bikes are provided) through the temple complex and north toward the south gate of Angkor Thom, to check out the centerpiece of this ancient city, the Bayon temple.

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You turned off a quiet narrow lane onto an indistinct track that crossed a field, and stopped at the edge of an ancient pollarded wood, and there, half hidden by a tangle of hawthorn bushes, was a small white picket gate.

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