Adventures in South East Asia: Cambodia

From Kampot I took an all day bus ride north to Siem Reap, home of the Angkor temples. Quick history lesson for those who don't know about the temples. From the 9th to the 15th century Angkor surved as the capital to the Khmer Empire which stretched from Myanmar to Vietnam. The city housed up to 1 million people which was a very large population at the time. All of the houses and palaces were made of wood so are long gone now but what remains are the giant temples they built.

"Tomb Raider" temple known as Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm

You can probably guess what most of my time was spent doing there.....My first day I rented a bicycle and went to some of the different temples including my favorite, Bayon. That evening I met up with Reid (who I traveled with before). As most of you probably know Bangkok's airport was out of service for a while and Reid got caught in the middle of it. He was supposed to fly out November 27th but obviously couldn't. So instead of sitting around Bangkok he decided to take advantage of the protests and hopped on a bus to Siem Reap.

Ancient sansript

My favorite temple, Bayon. Can you see the 3 faces?

The next day we went to some temples that were a little further away than most. So we hopped on a tuk tuk and away we went. The first one called Kbal Spean is known as the River of a Thousand Lingas (and in case you were wondering a linga is a carved penis). What remains now are just a bunch of circular stumps but there are also many hidden carvings in the water as well. To sound corny, it a very magical and mysterious setting. The second temple we went to was called Bantey Srei which is known for its detailed carvings. From there we went to the big one, Angkor Wat. It's huge!! We made it just in time for a beautiful sunset.

Ancient Khmer god Vishnu

Lingas

Kbal Spean

Reid and I in the back of our tuk tuk out to the temples. The roads were dusty so we gladly used our "kramas", traditional Cambodian scarfs. Everyone wears them here.