10/21 - 10/23 cambodia

“More man-hours than I’ve ever seen in one place”—those are Clint’s, uh, lyrical words for the largest religious complex in the world. The Temples of Angkor are massive, awe-inspiring, and unbelievable. And fortunately for Cambodia, it is a booming tourist site that is helping to heal the economy of this war-stricken country.

But back to Angkor. Built beginning in the 8th century, Angkor served as really the first capital of a unified Cambodia. The temples are many and vast, stretching for miles in all directions. Think really, really big. What a marvel it would have been to see them in full color at their peak. And to think that Hinduism spread all the way to Cambodia from India, that these temples are Hindu! Who would have thought—I continue to marvel of the links between civilizations across geographic boundaries. A must see if you can make it to this part of the world, but hurry fast, as it’s changing so quickly. 18 months ago when I was here you could climb to the top of Angkor Wat but no longer.

From Siem Reap (the boom town close to the Angkor temples), we took a 5-hr boat ride to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. You first cross Tonle Sap, the large lake in central Cambodia, and then continue south down river to the capital. It's more of a bustling town than a city, but the economy does seem to be picking up due to increased tourism. I hope it continues; there is so much poverty here. But at the same time, I hope it does so in such a way that the good comes without too much of the bad.

Unlike the temples of Latin America, these ones have huge indoor spaces

One of the temple sites (Ta Prohm) the French left largely as they found it, which means huge trees growing over everything. Most of the other temples have had their trees removed.
As you can tell, we loved the trees at Ta Prohm
Massive trees
Massive temples

Beautiful colors
Just some random temple that we had to ask our faithful tuk-tuk driver to stop at so we could check it out

Huffing and a puffing, he made it!
This is the temple that has the massive faces carved at the tops
Angkor Wat at dawn
More Angkor Wat, soon after sunrise
Monkeys! (The front one seemed about ready to grab the camera)
Notice the elephants below and Angkor Wat far in the distance
On our boat ride to the capital we saw endless floating houses and villages, and the people always waved and smiled at us - every time

Finally arrived at Phnom Penh, and decided to go to the market
At the market, we saw and smelled all sorts of things. For example, notice the lady to Clint's left
This is what she was selling - skinned frogs? Yes, 2 please.