EP's Heart in Siem Reap and Angkor

Ta Prohm!
So I’m going to break up my 9 day holiday into 3 or 4 parts, so you can have a teaser and not read a novel
So we’ll start with the heavy hitters-Angkor WAT! Fast Facts: Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. It was built in the 1100s and the Cambodians are obsessed. Its on their flags, money, everything. Actaully, Angkor Wat is just one temple, and we went to at least half a dozen (For sanity sake, individual names are not going to be described). Apparently, Angkor was the largest pre-industrial city in the world, and it shows, this badboy was HUGE. We stayed in a swell hostel in Siem Reap, and had to take a Tuk Tuk (Read-a cart pulled by a motorbike) to the temples. We started with the smaller temples, which were impressive in their own rights. The carvings and intricate nature that the Angkor people put into it was outstanding. One of the coolest parts was how the jungle has since incorporated itself into these ruins. I also liked that you could crawl all over the ruins, climb them and the like. It was cool to be part of history in some warped way. We saw heaps of temples the first day, and it was hot. Like, Really hot. The kind of heat that CT only gets once or twice a year hot. And dusty. Sorry if I’m not selling this trip, but that was the truth. We decided to end the day on the sunset temple, which Angela and I rode an elephant to the top of a hill to meet the boys, to watch a sunset that was fairly magnificent.

Sunset on the mountain

[Insert shenanigans and tomfoolery]

Sunrise, Sunrise

The Next morning we woke up crazy early. Like 430 early. I can’t remember the last time I saw 430 from that side of the day. We picked up our friend Brad, and rolled onto Angkor. Keep in mind its still dark, and we stumble out to where we believe we’ll be able to see the sunrise from, but who knows. It started getting really busy, really quick, and after a few camera issues, the sun started coming out. Imagine seeing the biggest religious building for the first time slowly, as the suns coming out. Its an experience I’ll never be able to duplicate, but I don’t know if I’d want to. It was amazing. We then spend the morning wandering the long, empty halls of Angkor Wat. Taking pictures, asking questions, trying to figure out how these people lived, what it was like to have such a kingdom, admiring the art and really getting lost in the history of it all and the wonder that is life. This place was huge, and really neat to lurk.

Playing in the hallways!

Entrance to Angkor Thom

After Breakfast we head to Angkor Thom, another Heavy hitter! This place was a sprawling beast of a temple. We started at the Bayon, which had 216 heads just staring at you. It was bizarre! We moved on and crawled on different parts of it until we saw the most dangerous temple of them all! So Taylor and I put on our game faces and climbed that sucker and fortunately, made it up to the tip top. It may have been the scariest experience of my life, but was great fun at the end, and an adventure. We then played around on the temple walls, taking pictures of the wall of lepers and the elephant gates.

Faces of The Bayon

Then came my favorite temple: Ta Prohm. This temple was epic, and was a really swell example of how the jungle just grows over these ruins like they may as well not exist. This temple is famous since its in a few movies, but it was really cool to see. The trees were just coming out of windows and were growing through the temple. It was amazing to see something so old, and something that must have been so amazing in its day be incoporated as part of the jungle. We also ran into a new friend here, and life was swell. We lurked, saw some temple and all in all, it was an amazing experince
Team with Tomb Raider tree.

The next day we went further out to Batrai Srie to see some of the carvings. This temple was much, much smaller, but the art here was outstanding. We had to bribe police to get here, and it was my first time riding on a motorcycle (Thanks Ben!)

My favorite from the temple
Sorry this petered out, but its a lot to write about!
I honestly hope that all of you make it out to the Angkor area at some point in your lives

Coming Soon: EP's heart in Phenom Penh
Patience and Faith,
ErinJ

Disclaimer: Check out eptheexpat.smugmug.com for the full picture experience.

Taylor, Angela and I in Angkor WAT