Angkor Wat, a true wonder of the world

Wow! Dena and I just spent three awe-inspiring days wandering around the ruins of the Angkor temple complex, the pride and joy of Cambodia. It was such an amazing place, we easily could have spent another few days exploring. The temple complex encompasses an area about 200 sq. km., and includes around 50 different temples. They were built by the emperors of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 13th centuries (note: Khmer is the name used to describe the ethnicity of the Cambodian people, and is also the name of the language in Cambodia). At its height, the empire ruled over all of Cambodia, as well as parts of modern-day Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. The largest and most famous temple is called Angkor Wat, the image of which appears on the Cambodian flag, label of the national beer, and just about everything else. It was built during the period when the Khmer empire was transitioning from Hinduism to Buddhism, and so this temple has clear influences of both religions. Some sources claim that Angkor Wat is in fact the largest religious building in the world. Our guidebook devotes 20 pages to the architecture, symbolism, and art of the temple, but I won't bore you with all of that. Hopefully the pictures on the right can begin to impress on you the beauty and majesty of the temple. One of the aspects of the temple we enjoyed the most were the bas-reliefs (i.e., carvings on the wall) that surround the entire temple (more than 12,000 sq. feet of carvings) depicting many historical and mythological scenes, in particular battle scenes. As is typical of Hindu imagery, many of the characters have multiple heads and / or multiple arms, and many creatures are part-human, part-animal. Our favorite scene was "The Battle Between Gods and Demons." This scene included sculptures of 21 different Hindu gods, each one riding their "vehicle" of choice (e.g., an elephant, a goose, chariot, five-headed snake, etc.). It's amazing how different these legends are from our own biblical stories. Another highlight of our visit to Angkor was having our very own Tomb-Raider experience. Several of the temples in the complex have been completely infiltrated by the surrounding jungle. A description from our guidebook summarizes the effect perfectly: "Everywhere around you, you see nature in its dual role of destroyer and consoler; strangling on the one hand, and healing on the other; no sooner splitting the carved stones asunder than she dresses their wounds with cool, velvety mosses, and binds them with her most delicate tendrils; a conflict of moods so contradictory and feminine as to prove once more-if proof were needed- how well 'Dame' Nature merits her feminine title!" One of the temples we visited was in fact the setting for the shooting of one of the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies. Supposedly, the most beautiful times to visit the temples are sunset and sunrise. We've had a couple of failed sunrise experiences already on this trip (i.e., Torres del Paine in Chile, and Huang Shan in China), so we were a little skeptical and decided to skip the sunrise, opting instead for the sunset. Unfortunately, our first two attempts were completely thwarted by rain and clouds. On our last day, we finally decided to suck it up, wake up at 4:30am, and hope for the best. Fortunately, this time we were rewarded! The sunrise over Angkor Wat was very pretty, and we then got to tour several more temples in the early morning, when the lighting is at its best... We took some great pictures that morning! And with that, we finished our quick trip through Cambodia. We would have loved to stay longer, but we only have a month left, and all of Thailand left to explore. Stay tuned for an update in a few days on our trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand (sneak peak: Thai cooking class, elephant training, trekking, more hill tribes, and white water rafting!). -Amit (& Dena)

Angkor Wat in all its glory Me, leaning on the "serpent" balustrade at the entrance gate to Angkor Wat Dena, posing in front of some of the many "Apsara" (heavenly dancer) sculptures that adorn the temples A small section of bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat A particularly well-preserved bas-relief at the "Terrace of the Leper King" Giant ficus tree supporting and destroying a section of the Ta Prohm temple Roots! One of over one hundred such face sculptures at the Bayon temple Banteay Srei, a smaller, but exceptionally decorated temple ~25km from Angkor Wat Wider view of Banteay Srei Sunrise at Angkor Wat A temple on earth and a temple in heaven In between visits to the temples, we found time to take a Khmer cooking class. YUM! It is definitely the wet season It seemed like 90% of the cars in Cambodia were Toyota or Lexus models; I'd never heard of the Toyota CORONA model before :)