Angkor What?

As I mentioned previously, Sarah and I managed to snag 2 for 1 tickets on Lao Airlines, so we flew on down to Cambodia rather than going overland. Everything went amazingly smoothly, and we were safely in our hotel room in Siem Reap, Cambodia by 10am. For some reason we didn't have to pay the $10 airport exit tax in Vientiane, so that was a good omen. It was also great to see someone standing at the entrance to the airport here in Siem Reap holding up a card with Sarah's name on it; free pickup from the airport! Not bad for a $6/night room. We were picked up in yet another of the endless varieties taxis you find in developing nations. This one was called a remorque-moto (or simply tuk-tuk, like in Laos), and was a regular motorbike with a little covered trailer attached. It had a big comfy seat for two and the words "Lovely Jubbly" written on the back.

The first order of business when we arrived at the hotel was to take a nap, which we both did very satisfactorily for a couple hours.

The main reason to come to Siem Reap here in Cambodia is to see the world-famous ruins of Angkor Wat, a Khmer temple and one of the largest religious structures in the world. Amazingly, Angkor Wat is simply only one of the many, many, many temples and ruins scattered over a 70 square kilometer area here. Seems that each of the ancient Khmer god-kings tried to one-up their predecessors and created a whole series of massive structures, each requiring the work of thousands of people. The largest, Angkor Thom, has a 5 meter high wall that encloses 10 sq. kilometers of forest and temples. This temple was built at the height of the Khmer kingdom's power (around 800 years ago), when there were thought to be over a million people residing in the area around the royal capital.

We spent the last few hours of the first day in town at Phnom Bakheng, another massive Hindu temple built around 900 A.D. People come here for the sunsets over Tonle Sap Lake, but we found that the sunset coloring the temple itself was more amazing. This was a lucky thing too, because there were bazillions of people on top of the temple waiting for the sunset. We got down a couple levels and spent our time enjoying the carvings and sunlight in areas that were secluded and quiet. A much better way to spend the evening. I have an image in my mind from that night of a couple Buddhist monks in their saffron robes perched high up on the temple, with a rainbow in the sky behind them, a light mist coming down, and dozens of Needletails (a large type of swift) flying around. Beautiful.

More to come in the next post. Check back for pictures later, too.

-Matt!