Angkor Wat… holy moses…

i can honestly say now, looking back on most of our trip sitting here in the Singapore airport, that the most spectacular thing i saw was Angkor Wat.  i thought i pretty much knew what it was before traveling to Siem Reap, Cambodia but boy was i wrong.  it was bigger, brighter, more fantastic than i could’ve ever imagined!  i can safely say it blew both of our mind’s!

we took a 6 hour bus ride to siem reap from phnom penh where we were greeted again by a mob of tuk tuk drivers.  we found a nice guy for a great price and he kindly took us around to a few guesthouses where we eventually found one that not only suited our needs but was within our price range.  guesthouses in siem reap were far more expensive than i ever would’ve imagine.  the deal is though, the town wouldn’t exist if angkor wat wasn’t there.  it’s strictly a tourist town with many spas & resorts, restaurants, and shops.  since we liked our tuk tuk driver so much we decided to hire him for the following day to give us a one day glimpse into the world of angkor wat.  a one day pass is $20 and it goes up from there.  due to time and money constraints we opted for only one day initially feeling pretty bad about it because how many other times were we going to get to siem reap?  however, after one long arduous day we decided one suited us pretty darn well. 

angkor wat is about 6 km north of siem reap.  we left our guesthouse around 10 a.m. and got there soon after… just before the crazy midday heat set in! neither one of us realized just how much land area the wat’s covered or how complex they are.  the first one we visited had gigantic trees growing in, over, and around it, the second was a giant pyramid that had been struck by lightening at the top, the next had a 1,000 different faces and heads on it, and from there it just kept getting more and more beautiful with crazy stories attached to them.  the last one of the day for us was angkor wat.  as lame as it may sound, it totally knocked us off our feet as we approached.  it’s the largest religious structure on earth and my god is it beautiful!  i’ve seen castles and fortresses and cathedrals and all kinds of buildings that are magnificent but the only thing i can maybe compare this to, mind you i’ve yet to go, are the pyramids in egypt or machu pechu in peru.  we’re talking about a lost city that had 1,000,000 inhabits at a time when london was a mere 50,000 people.  we’re talkin’ pyramids that date back thousands of years!!! this is crazy shit (sorry, mom!)  it was so remarkable!  not to lessen it any but a few of the wats were featured in Tomb Raider (starring angelina jolie) if anyone remembers.  there are so many they seem to go on forever!  i think we managed to cover 6 or 7 of them before we were exhausted from hiking around and the sweltering heat.  siem reap is by far and away a place i would HIGHLY suggest to anyone and everyone.  as far as temples and other tourist attractions on this trip we have yet to see anything better. 

we were in and out of siem reap pretty darn quick.  the following day we headed to the airport where we flew to vientiane, laos.  for anyone thinking about doing this i would highly suggest it, however there’s a $25 departure fee in the airport which pissed us both off.  c’est la vie…

 on to the most bombed country in the world! 

p.s. i must add that the market in siem reap is killer with lots of neat gifts as well as shoes, tshirts, fish, and other once living creatures!