I would like to share some photos of the South Gate of Angkor Thom. I think this gate represents the atmosphere of Khmer ruins very well. For some reason, it reminds me of a Japanese anime called “Babel II,” which I watched when I was a child.
These photos were taken at the end of December 2009, so please note that the appearance may be slightly different from how it looks today.
My first trip to Cambodia was in the mid‑1990s, and this visit was my first time in about fourteen or fifteen years. I was truly surprised to see how much Siem Reap had changed. During my first visit, an elderly woman who managed a small restaurant was very kind to me, and I hoped I might see her again. However, the town had changed so much that it was impossible to identify where the restaurant had been.
Of course, cities change over time — my hometown has changed, and Bangkok has changed a lot as well — but compared to those places, Siem Reap felt almost like a completely different city.
Even so, the South Gate looked just as I remembered, except for the large number of tourists. At that time, I felt that this was exactly what a historical structure should look like.
