Angkor What?!?

We are wrapping up our second day in Angkor and are just as sweaty, dirty and tired as the first. Visiting ancient ruins is hard work!

Siem Reap is the city closest to Angkor and our home until Thursday. It's as busy as Bangkok but much more pleasant thanks to its small, manageable scale and colonial charm. It has been a lot of fun and has given us a nice break each evening from our 10th century time travel through the ruins. What is most striking about the city though, is how nice and welcoming the people are. Despite the rampant poverty and unsalable living conditions, they are always smiling (and ready to sell you anything and everything with incredible persistence!).

Angkor itself has been incredible, despite the constant heat. It is hard to describe how grandiose the wats (temples) are, and none of our pictures will do them justice but we will attempt to give you some highlights.

Angkor is formed of dozens of temples built in close proximity by the Cambodian God-Kings. Each king tried to out-do their predecessors by building more impressive temples. This explains in part, the grandeur of the area. We secured a tuk-tuk driver (a trailer with seating attached to a moped - perfect for two) to take us around which has been really fun and practical. Without the help of our driver, we would still be out there trying to find our way home. Along the way, we also found out that drivers in Cambodia are entirely oblivious to on-coming traffic and that mopeds can easily accommodate a family of 4.

On our first day, we visited the largest wats, and were blown away by the size, intricate details and architectural features of the Kmer capital. We saw Elephant murals, entire walls carved with stories of Hindu gods, sky-high buildings erected to represent Mount Meru, and a lifetime supply of Buddhas. It is easy to imagine how impressive it must have been in its heyday, before mother nature and Kmer wars took their toll. The heat made the journey a little challenging but our (very attractive!) back-packer attire helped (see photo above) , along with an average 3000 gallons of water per day.

Day 2 took us about 50 km outside Siem Reap to see even more ancient wats, local villages and an entire river bed carved in Hindu symbols. As you can see, Matt even made a new friend along the way.

Tomorrow, we are planning on going back to Angkor Wat at sunrise and then visit local floating villages in the afternoon. After two straight days of temples, it will be good to see something different!

All in all, Cambodia has been really great and we are looking forward to heading to its capital, Phnom Penh, on Thursday. We are loving everyone's comments so keep on posting!

Je comptais ecrire un long compte-rendu en Francais, mais comme la connection internet est tres mauvais, j'ai peur de perdre tout ce que j'ai ecrit ci-dessus. Tout va bien malgres la chaleur terassante. Angkor a ete aussi spectaculaire que je l'avais esperé et nous profitons bien de notre sejour ici. J'ecrirais plus a notre prochaine étape mais je pense bien a tout le monde!