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Published: July 21st 2006
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Angkor Wat
Right before sunset... Hello again everyone...two quick updates for ya, not to bad eh? After our day at the Killing Fields and shooting range we were pretty tired so we just decided to chill at the OKAY Guesthouse and watched a few movies with our new Cambodian buddies Ala, Rotana, O, and Siena. All of these guys worked at the Guesthouse and they spoke pretty good english, but their accents were sooo funny! They would make fun of each other in english and we got a huge kick out of this...at the same time these guys were cool to hang out with, they told us about the lots of politics and corruption in Cambodia, and about some of the underground stuff that goes on, pretty sketchy stuff. They also wrote our names out in Khmer, which is the official language here, although the majority of the people that we ran into spoke English. Our names looked pretty weird to say the least!!!
Anyways, we got up at 10am the next day and took the afternoon bus to Siem Reap which is a city that lies in the shadow of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is home to the world's most famous temples, according to
New Buddy
Say hello to my little friend "Boon-Ting".... some people. Along the way Raj and Bryan bought a whole pineapple for less than .50 cents, beats the hell outta canned pineapple any day. They are sooo fresh here....it's unbelievable! The place we were staying at was called the Hello Guest House and the staff are super nice (family run Guesthouse, like most of them in Cambodia). They have a 4 year old boy name Boon-tinga and he ended up making fun of us for our hair etc haha. There's a picture of him and Rajan on this page. We ended up having a good chat with the whole family before going to bed, super nice people but such a hard life.
The next morning we woke up to go see the Temples of Angkor.....at 4:00 AM in the morning, yeah your read it right 4 AM!!! We were soooooo tired, but the sunrise over the Angkor Wat temple was impressive. It was a bit cloudy but we were able to get some pictures at dawn, and it allowed us to get an early start on the day. We spent almost 8 hours wandering the Temples of Angkor stopping at places like Angkor Wat, Ta Keo, Preah Khan,
Bryan and Will at Angkor Wat
Where's Waldo, these places are huge ... u want to build this thing ??? Neak Pean, Banteay Kdei, Bayon, Angkor Thom, Pre Rup along with many others. These temples are in a wide variety of conditions, ranging from almost new looking to the completely collapsed and/or dilapidated. We visited the temple that was used during the filming of Tomb Raider... the pic below with Raj and the tree was taken at this location 😊 No sight of Angelina Jolie though....shiiiiiit! We're too good for her anyways....
All of the temples were built by the Angkor Empire between the years of 800 and 1200 AD. The carvings and masonry work at these places is amazing, and some of the steps that they created were quite the challenge to climb, see the pics below. We were kinda glad Nick wasn’t there, since he managed to trip and fall at least 5 times on our trek, he would have probably killed himself :P haha (sorry Nick, Bryan slipped once in your honor). Some of the temples are currently being restored, many of them collapsed due to poor construction methods, resulting from being rushed during construction. The Angkor Empire did nothing but fight wars and build temples during this 500 year span, and most of the work
Will and Raj Angkor Wat
Very Early Morning :P .. But a nice temple is impressive to say the least. Check the pics for some stupid poses... and the one with Raj taking a nap in quite the awkward place, I think he freaked a few people out. He was sacrificing himself to the temple.....lucky he woke up! Oh yeah, some police man tried to sell us his badge and hat, I almost bought it for my dad back home, but they are super corrupt here and would probably arrest me for impersonating a police officer :P (Bryan)
Overall it was a great, and tiring day. The Cambodian people are extremely proud of these temples due to the fact that they offset the recent negative history that plagues the countries image. As Will would say “it allowed us to view the inner light of the human condition.” The Kingdom of Cambodia displays Angkor Wat on their flag, showing how proud they are of the accomplishments of their ancestors. We show a Maple Leaf....are we that proud of this tree?? I don't really think so....
Tonight we are heading to bed soon...after Will eats again of course:P We have to be up at 6am to catch a bus back to Phnom Pehn, our
Huge Stairs
Will is a little camera shy, Raj is just annoying flight leaves from there around 8am and we arrive in Bangkok around 930. The plan when we land is to rush to a tailor at the MBK mall in Bangkok (that is recommended by our friend Togio) to buy suits and blazers etc. The price for a custom made suit ranges over here, but a decent quality one runs about $120 Canadian. We are going to spend a total of 9 hours in Bangkok before rushing back to the airport to catch a 7pm flight to Hanoi, a city in Northern Vietnam (along with a another stupid Departure fee in the Bangkok Airport....here's us getting ripped off again).... So if all goes to plan we will have suits on the way and be chillin in Hanoi the next time we update the blog😊 Take care and we'll be in touch!!! Wish us luck in Vietnam!!!
See ya soon....
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Erik L
YC Law
Good!
Enjoyed reading this. Will be in Cambodia myself in Oct. So trying to pick many do's and don'ts from here! :) Hope to hear more!