Siem Reap, Cambodia

This week, Lisa and I spent a couple of days in Siem Reap exploring the local sights. Cambodia is very different that any place I have ever visited. Unfortunately, the people there are very poor - much more so than those in Thailand, whose poverty made me and Mom sad at times. It is also HOT!

Nonetheless, Cambodia is a great country with lots to offer. Most importantly, tourism is going to be critical to its future, because there are not a lot of other ways for these people to make money. We were lucky enough to have a great tuk tuk driver, Mr. Meng Davuth. I have his business card for any of you folks considering a trip to Siem Reap! Mr. Meng knows his stuff. On our first full day, we visited the floating village and the sunset at the Angkor Wat Temple.

The floating village is really just that - people living on the water. It's rainy season here now so everything is floating, but according to our guide, in dry season people are landlocked and the lake is a bunch of sand. Things we saw that were floating included, but were not limited to, a school with a basketball court, several grocery and electronics outlets, two police stations and a lot of homes. About 3000 Vietnamese and Cambodian people live in the floating village and the pictures you see here don't really capture the vastness of it.

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That evening Mr. Meng felt strongly that we should go see the sunset at Angkor Wat, the big temple. We left about 4:30 because sunset is at like 6. On the way, he mentioned that there would be a lot of people. He was not kidding! There were tour buses everywhere. We wove our way up the hill and braved the climb up some uber-narrow steps only to observe that it was very cloudy and the sunset was not what we were hoping for. As such, we decided to descend the hill by elephant. We tried to get some photos of ourselves on the elephant, but as Carolyn has already noted, it's a bit of a rough ride. You can see here how many people there were, and how punchy I was after climbing to the top of the temple!

The next morning we had temples to see and we were up and at 'em. Angkor Wat is a truly special place. It is a set of Hindu temples that have evolved into Bhuddist over time. Here, you see some headless Bhuddas that are said to actually represent one of the kings' wives! The place was built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, and is remarked to be one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From here, the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain that reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal. There are more 100 stone temples in all (we saw about 7 up close).

According the the Sacred Sites website (http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/cambodia/angkor_wat.html), scholars agree that Angkor was a city as well as a holy venue, placed where it is because of its strategic military position and agricultural potential. Alternative scholars, however, believe that the geographical location of the Angkor complex and the arrangement of its temples was based on a planet-spanning sacred geography from archaic times. Using computer simulations it has been shown that the ground plan of the Angkor complex mirrors the stars in the constellation of Draco at the time of spring equinox in 10,500 BC. Wicked!

Our favorite temples were Angkor Wat, the main temple, and the Jungle Temple, Ta Prohm. Going into the main temple is a very dramatic experience, and as one climbs around and sees the 1+ miles of bas relief murals telling sacred Hindu tales, it is a bit overwhelming. Ta Prohm was outstanding because it has been preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an architectural monument when humans keep their hands off! Roots of huge trees literally grow in formations around the temple. Having planted themselves centuries ago, the trees' serpentine roots pry apart the ancient stones and their immense trunks straddle the once bustling Buddhist temple. It's also where they filmed "Tomb Raider" with Angeline Jolie, who is like a local hero here.

Unlike Angelina, we did not adopt any kids, which was probably for the best...but you can see how one could be inspired.