Blogs from Angkor, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 8

1 Jan 2013: New Year’s Sunrise New Year for me is one of the more momentous days in a year and 2013 will qualify in my top five list of memorable New Year’s days. The decision to forego much needed sleep to make a pilgrimage of sorts to a witness the first sunrise of the year and approximatly the 900th New Year’s sunrise over Angkor Wat – will be a memory that stays with me for a lifetime (and superstitiously I’m hoping it acted as a harbinger of good things for 2013). What has that temple complex witnessed over those 900 New Year’s (yes I know they weren’t using the Gregorian calendar)? I would love to know, but I’ll have to settle on only knowing what the sun, sky and temple looked like that particular morning. ... read more

30 Dec:Further to my post earlier today (if you haven't seen it you can find it here:www.travelblog.org) here are a few videos from the first person scrambling through the temples and temple ruins. Even videos don't do these ruins justice, so you'll just need to trek to Cambodia yourself to take it all in. Angkor Wat The following video was taken about 8am in the morning at the entrance to Angkor Wat proper (you can see the steps up to the causeway about halfway through the video). The number of tourists, busses, cars, tuk tuks trebled in the two hours that I was such that it was nearly impossible to find my driver as there were hundreds of people and vehicles milling around. Don’t let the number of tourists discourage you from going, just ensure that ... read more

Our first morning visiting the temples we were picked up at 5 am by our jolly, lovely tuk-tuk driver Mr Theoun and our Apsara Authority guide (we decided to book a guide for the first day, in the hopes of both seing things when they were least crowded and coming away with more than just sore thighs and high body temperatures). We watched the sunrise over Sra Srang, a quiet experience compared to the thousands of people we saw gathering at Angkor Wat, and continued to Ta Phrom (now also known as the «Tomb Raider» temple...) as the dawn was still breaking, and the grounds were quiet. We felt priviledged to be there nearly on our own, witness to the remnants of an old empire being slowly swalloed by the jungle. The distances between some of ... read more

Angkor, located outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia, is considered one of the 7 man made wonders in the world. It has the greatest riches of architectural riches anywhere in the world. Angkor was a thriving community dating back to the first century. When London only had a population of 50,000 people, Angkor was thriving with over one million. An intricate water irrigation system provided water for the city, and the community thrived for hundreds of years. Angkor Wat is the largest and most preserved temple. Whereas many of the other temples were built by Buddhist kings, Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple. Only the remains of the temples are currently present, as only the temples were built out of rock. All homes for humans (even the kings) were built from wood and are now ... read more

As the blog title states... I've still no computer access to upload the photos from my camera, I will do once I get to Bangkok! Today started early, very early. I woke before my alarm, well actually I only dozed all night as there were what sounded like 20 dogs howling and barking all night long! So at 4am I got up & ready and then met my tuk tuk driver and we drove to Angkor Wat. Walking the long dark bridge across to Angkor I sat with probably 300 people waiting for sunrise. To see the Cambodian morning star disappear and then watch Angkor rise in the morning light was breathtaking. It truly is a wonder of the world. I spent about 1 hr at Angkor and then after meeting TJ ( a girl from ... read more