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Published: September 16th 2008
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Most people visiting Cambodia come to Siem Reap because it is the gateway city for the famous temples of Angkor. This is exactly why we found ourselves in this small, but bustling town. We arrived into town late afternoon and immediately were again bombarded by what seemed like a million tuk tuk drivers wanting to take us into town. We bargained two down and off we went. Since it had just rained the ride was interesting. It was like 4WD tuk tuk style, as our driver drove us through puddles and bumps on the dirt road to town. Quite exciting that's for sure!
After arriving we knew we had to figure out how to get to the temples the next day and we knew it was going to be a long day. Kevin only had one day before he flew back to Ireland so we wanted to see everything with him. We worked it out that two tuk tuk drivers would pick us up from our hotel at 5am so we could see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, the most famous landmark in Cambodia. So we went to bed early that night because we knew we had such a long
day ahead of us.
The next morning came too early, but we were anxious to get to Angkor Wat. The drive to the temple was very surreal. It was dark and Jeff and I were on a tuk tuk to Angkor Wat- WHAT?! Just one of those moments I guess. I was super excited to see Angkor Wat, as I had seen so many pictures and heard so many stories of it in the past. When we walked through the front gate and I had no idea what to expect in front of me. As the sun started to rise I saw scaffolding on the main tower of Angkor Wat. As it got lighter and lighter I became sadder and sadder. It just wasn't what I was expecting, it was much smaller and the sunrise hadn't proved to be a spiritual moment for me. I overheard many others saying how amazing it was, but I guess it just didn't do it for me. I was so disappointed and quite grumpy I was now up that early! We did spend about an hour exploring the temple and all its carvings. Once inside things were much better and even when we
came out after wards to a full sky of sun, Angkor Wat seemed to brighten up. It was definitely not a Mt. Everest moment though!
After Angkor Wat, we headed to Angkor Thom, a huge temple complex with many small temples inside. The entrance has these Buddha heads looking in all directions and there are monkeys climbing all over them!
The first temple we saw in Angkor Thom was the Bayon. I think this temple ended up being one of my favorites. It kind of looks like a pile of rocks, until you get to the top. Then you notice the big spires with faces all over them. You are constantly being watched by Buddha. It was pretty cool. After that we went to about four more temple complexes in the area. My favorite was the Terrace of the Elephants, which had tons of elephant statues everywhere! After this, we were in desperate need of some coffee. We were quickly bombarded by children trying to sell you things. Our new tactic with this is to just befriend them. After sitting for 1/2 hour, all the little Cambodian girls were my best friends. I am really really loving all
the Cambodian children. They are my favorite so far! They are just so happy and love to play. They are forced by such a poor society to spend their days begging and selling rather than learning, but you cannot help but love them.
After this, we left the Angkor Thom walls and went out to some more remote temples. The first was Ta Keo, which was a huge pile of temple with very steep rocks to climb. They filmed part of the film Tombraider here, which probably explains Angelina's love of Cambodia.
After lunch we had only two more temples left. One of our favorites ended up being Ta Prohm. This temple has not been well kept through the years and the power of the jungle has overtaken many of its buildings. Many of the buildings have fallen down and others are barely being held up by reinforcements. There are many places where the tree roots have grown over the buildings giving everything a very Indiana Jones feel. We couldn't help but hum the theme song the entire time we were there. There are also plenty of snakes there that you have to look out for, luckily, we
didn't see any!
About 5pm we headed for the hillside temple of Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunset. You can see Angkor Wat from the hill as well as the landscape of the jungle. The sky was pretty blue, but we still had a while till sunset and of course as the sun began to set a storm rolled in and the clouds came, raining on all of us and causing a non-existent sunset. The tuk tuk drive home in a giant lightning storm was quite exciting though.
All in all, the temples were an amazing experience, even if Angkor Wat was disappointing.
The next day, we said goodbye to Kevin, who was returning home and explored the small city of Siem Reap. Then it was off to Laos.
Overall, Cambodia is an amazing country that has made me feel helpless in so many ways. The people have been so broken down in the recent years, but their spirit is amazing. We have also met so many amazing children living in extreme poverty and being forced to work to survive. I cannot tell you how smart these kids are. Many speak 3 different languages out of
necessity to sell. They all know the capital of your home country as a ploy to sell you something, but what other 5 year old knows the capitals of 30+ countries. It's amazing! These are faces of the future of Cambodia. I hope the country can continue to grow and expand out of its horrific past. The government today is not much better however. The rich are very rich and the poor are very poor and the government is corrupt. I know this occurring so many places in this world, but as I look at the faces of these people I hope they can inspire me and others to make a change in this world. We take so much for granted and have so much, but we are still unhappy. These people have so little, but live so much.
Ok, enough preaching, I have just really been touched by the people of Cambodia and wish I could do more.
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freddie
non-member comment
Nice Peter pose!!!!! to live is an awfully big adventure:)