Angkor Temples.

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I am really enjoying Cambodia so far! The people are friendly and the town is much more relaxed than Bangkok and India. Today we went to four of the Angkor Temples. After eating granola bars in the room for breakfast we headed out to the main Angkor Wat temple complex. These temples are all about 800 years old and have survived pretty well. Angkor wat was huge and beautiful. We had a tour guide that explained the significance of many of the structures. While we were there someone got attacked by a monkey. Not that they got hurt but a monkey charged someone and jumped up on them and would not let go. I was pretty entertained and took a lot of photos. The person reacted the worst possible way by screaming and trying to run. I learned in India, that you have to just raise your fist and look mean and most animals respond to that. They are used to being beaten by people and are actually scared of you if you act like you are going to hit them. Later that morning we went to Banteay kdei. One of the cool things aobut Cambodia, is all of the NGOs and vocational social programs that have been implemented to support local artisians and break the begging cycle. SO for lunch we went to a place called the butterfly cafe that had 1500 butterflies flying around an enclosed cafe, which were purchased to support schools for children here. I learned that it only costs about $1 a year for children to go to elementary school and about $3 a year for children to go to secondary school. After lunch, we went to the huge Angkor Thom complex, and saw the Bayon temple. We later went to the Pre rup complex where we watched the sunset. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain and we were unable to really see much of a sunset. THe rain made the temples mystic looking. Kind of neat. For dinner we went to a little Cambodian restaraunt that had traditional khmer and aspara dancing. We got to see the traditional fishing and peacock dances, which are native to this area. the dancing uses really intricate hand movements and they stand on one foot a lot.
Yesterday we toured the rest of the temples. We got up at 430am to watch sunrise over Angkor wat. However, because it had been raining the sky was cloudy and we didn't see much. Made me a little sad, since I had to get up so early and then just wait around for an hour without seeing anything. After I finally got to ride an elephant!!!! It was so cool! Lauren and I got to ride on the same elephant for about 20 minutes around the terrace of elephants. They are huge and kind of smell! NOt that we actually smell much better at this point in the trip though. 😊 I took a bunch of photos and a video, which i''ll try to upload tomorrow. Then we went to Ta Prhom, which is the jungle temple, where much of tomb raider was filmed. I looked for Angelina Jolie, but she was nowhere to be found. The temple is pretty awesome, because it is overgrown with vines everywhere. We got to see where a couple of the scenes were filmed and Lauren and I took some of our own pretend action shots. Later in the afternoon, we went to a landmine museum. It is hard to believe that 3 to 6 million landmines are still active in this country. The museum supported victims and families of victims. The background of the museum is interesting since the man who started the museum was a child of war in the khmer army and now spends his life demining the mines he placed in his childhood. Very sad, but educational.
Today i leave for Phnom Penh and will visit the killing fields and tlo sleung. hopefully i can upload photos then.

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