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Published: February 25th 2009
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Angkor Wat
Sunrise at Angkor Wat. Today we took a bus from Phnom Penh and arrived at the sister guesthouse to the one we stayed in, in Phnom Penh. Seim Reap is a really cool city but there is no water anywhere around it and it's HOT. My forearms were literally sweating and on top of feeling nasty from that, it's the dustiest place I've ever been. I would take a shower, step outside and instantly feel filthy! We stopped in a place called Dead Fish for dinner because they had a live band. This place was great, it was build inside what looked to have been an old barn and there were like 15 different levels all at different heights, so everyone could see the band in the middle of the restaurant. It was very open inside and had a great feel. After dinner we were exhausted from our long journey so we went to bed.
We woke early today to discover that the guy who said he would take us to the Wat's decided not to show up! We wanted to see Angkor Wat at sunrise so we had to move fast. We found a tuk tuk driver without too much trouble, agreed upon
Angkor Wat
A view of Angkor in the backgroud. a price and made our way to the Wat. We arrived just in time to see the sunrise over this ancient Wat. Angkor was very impressive because of the sheer size of it. Every inch of this temple had very detailed carvings, it must’ve taken years to finish! We walked around for about an hour then headed back out to get some breakfast before moving to the next temple. The grounds on which these Wat's/Temples are located is massive, you would need about a solid week in order to cover it all. Over the years, different dynasties took over the kingdom and continued to build more and more Wats and Temples. The unique thing is the fact that over the years, the dynasties changed from Hindu and Buddhist so there are a variety of styles to each one. Initially it was a myth that this ancient civilization and the temples had ever even existed until they were discovered about 150 years ago. The reason they went undiscovered for so many centuries is due to the fact that over the years, the jungle absorbed them. The foliage was so thick that you couldn't see them. An interesting fact is that this
Angkor Wat
This place was huge! civilization boasted 1 million citizens when London only had 50,000. So, as you can see they were pretty well established in that time period.
After Angkor Wat, the next stop was Bayon Temple and this place was cool! It is referred to as the temple of faces, actually I may have just made that up but if you check the ridiculous amount of photo’s I posted, you can see why! Everywhere we looked there were intricate carvings of large faces. The other thing I liked is that part of the temple was falling over because of its age so it gave it a really cool look. We walked around for a while on top then I split from the others and made my way down into the corridors beneath the temple. This was awesome because I was the only person down there and it was a bit surreal because of how quiet it was. I was able to sit back and think about all the crazy history that took place here 750 years ago! It was crazy to look up and see massive 500 lbs. stones stacked on one another and to think that they are the only things
Angkor Wat
The headless statue! holding the place together. We spent about an hour roaming around and exploring Bayon, it was easily my favorite temple until I got to Ta Prohm Temple.
Ta Prohm Temple would look familiar to you if you saw Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones, portions of each movie was filmed here. Apparently this is the most popular temple of them all. Upon arrival Kailie and I didn't think it was that sweet and didn't think it lived up to the hype and it wouldn't have if we had done the normal tourist thing. However, we decided to get down and dirty and explore. We left the beaten path and started climbing thorough portions that have collapsed over the years and found little corridors that never would've been seen if we had stuck to the path. There were no tourists around us so it was almost as though we had the temples to ourselves. The roots on these monster trees grew up over the walls and eventually took over the temple. This is one of the only temples that was not cleared of jungle. By the time we left, it was hands down my favorite. We got some awesome pictures and
Angkor Wat
These stairs were extremely narrow! I believe saw the best of Ta Prohm. The only thing that could’ve made this a little better is if Angelina came out in her Laura Croft outfit, trust me, I was looking!
Upon returning to the hostel we showered up and spent some time online before meeting some friends we made back in Laos for some drinks. We had a pretty late night before heading to bed because we were leaving for Bangkok in the morning.
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