Siem Reap - Ankor Wat

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Siem Reap is a super touristy town located just 6k from Angkor Wat. There are lots of interesting things to do like go to the night market, have a Khmer massage or a fish massage What is a fish massage you ask.... There are these big tanks on the side walks with benches around the top. You sit on the end and stick your feet in and the fish eat the dead skin from your feet. It’s only 2 dollars and often comes with a free beer. Definitely visit The Blue Pumpkin Bakery for some sweets and check out the air conditioned study lounge upstairs to see the pile of sleeping students on the communal couch. Bar Street (that's literally what its called) has lots of restaurants where you can see traditional Khmer dancing (Temple Bar is a good one) which is worth seeing. On Bar Street you will encounter a lot of westerners. The temples can get crowded too. It's definitely worth it to explore some of the less popular ones.

The Ankor Wat Complex is enormous. Ankor Wat is the largest but there are many. The park stretches 24 miles of jungle and consists of over 100 Buddhist and Hindu temples dating from the 10th to 14th century. 29 of the temples are open to tourists. Of these we only visited 6 over a two day period. The majority of the temples are dedicated to Shiva (the destroyer), one of the three important Hindu gods. One you want to keep happy. Vishnu (the preserver) is second. Angkor Wat is dedicated to Vishnu. Finally there’s Brahma (the creator) in third. The architecture of the temple will tell you if it was originally Buddhist (one story) or Hindu (multiple stories) but the inside of the temples is often mixed. Since they took so long to build, there were multiple kings overseeing the construction and they were not always the same religion. Many of the carvings on the walls are in really good shape. You can see images of the different gods and see stories told about wars and about the every day lives of the people. When you think of Ankor Wat an image of a tree growing out of a building probably comes to mind. I was expecting to see this but when I actually did I still wasn't prepared. It's incredible. You can't really tell which came first, the tree or the temple. Ankor Wat is a must see.

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