Cambodia

We had a great time in Siem Reap earlier this week!  On Sunday we had a tour guide for the day who took us to four different temples.  We started our tour at 5 in the morning and went to Angkor Wat, the largest of the temples, for the sunrise.  Angkor Wat was built in the early 1100's.  It only took 37 years to construct and was built solely by volunteers, no slave labor.  It was originally built as a Hindu temple but was later converted to a Buddhist temple.  It's still an active Buddhist temple today and we had to make sure our shoulders and knees were covered in order to go inside.  The sunrise was very cool to see and walking through the 900 year old temple was very neat also.  It seems that UNESCO has done a nice job preserving it and adding in some supports to keep it standing.  Unfortunately, pollution from China is starting to arrive and cause some problems but hopefully they will be able to continue to preserve it just as well since it really is so amazing to visit.

We also visited Ta Prohm, another temple in the Angkor Wat complex.  It was built in the late 12th century but was abandoned in the 17th century.  Since it was abandoned for so long, nature took over and trees began to grow very close to the temple walls.  The roots of the trees have become so big that they have caused many sections of the temple to collapse.  What is left standing has been stabilized for visitors but otherwise it has been left as it was originally found a few centuries after it's abandonment.

Next we went to Banteay Srei, originally built in the 10th century so is over 1000 years old today.  It's a bit different from the other two we had seen since it is made from red sandstone and has very elaborate carvings.

The last temple we visited on Sunday was Bayon which was the last temple to be built as part of the Angkor complex in the late 12th century and the only one to be built originally as a Buddhist temple.  This temple was  pretty big and also different from the others as it had the four faces of Buddha built into many of the columns.

On Monday we were on our own for exploring so we hired a tuk tuk driver for a few hours to take us to three other temples in the Angkor complex.  They were also interesting to see but after visiting seven temples in two days in 95+ degree heat, we were feeling ready to move on.  Being in Cambodia was a different experience for sure.  There were very few buildings other than hotels in Siem Reap.  Most everything else seemed to be in open air markets or just on the streets.  Hawkers were everywhere always trying to get you to buy something and not wanting to leave you alone (they were in Thailand last week too but even more in Cambodia).  The child beggers and sellers at the temples were hard to ignore after a while.  Unfortunately, you are supposed to ignore them because if you try to talk to them or buy something from one of them, you will have a hundred more kids swarming you right away.  The second day we couldn't help but give in and bought some postcards from a girl at one of the temples because we thought she was alone in that particular area.  Nope.  As soon as we handed her the dollar we had more than 10 other ones come out of nowhere trying to get us to buy more from them.

On Tuesday we took a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.   It was less than 200 miles away but took us over six hours to get there through the countryside.  We think that probably more than half of the road we traveled on was not paved.  It was very dusty since it's the dry season right now.  It also seemed like we spent more time on the wrong side of the road than the right side trying to pass so many motorbikes all the time.  We're somewhat accustomed to how people drive in Asia but this bus ride was a bit interesting even for that!  But we made it!

On Wednesday we hired a tuk tuk for the morning to take us to the Choeung Ek killing fields just outside of Phnom Penh.  This is one site of several mass graves from the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.  It was very sad but also very interesting to learn about, as the genocide that took place here less than 40 years ago is not well known in the Western world.  We also visited the S21 prison (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) which is a former high school the Khmer Rouge regime used as a prison and torture center.  Again, very sad but very interesting.  There were only 12 survivors from S21 when the regime finally ended, only three still living today.  We were actually able to meet one of them when we were there which was pretty neat.  In the afternoon we walked around the Royal Palace area where the king lives.  Unfortunately I was not dressed "correctly" (my shorts did not cover my knees) so we didn't go inside but the outside of the palace was still interesting to see.

This afternoon we arrived in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, our last stop before heading home on Sunday.  I will try to post more about Vietnam tomorrow!  And of course many more pictures will be uploaded to Shutterfly after we get home!