Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is a massive complex of temples up to 1000 years old. The main temple is the most famous and is considered the largest religious building ever constructed. It is surrounded by a massive moat which is almost as amazing a feat of construction as the temple, which has no mortar or anything like that, just perfectly shaped blocks of stone that all fit together.

We decided to explore the temples by bicycle with Jo and Nick, to see the whole shebang involves doing two loops of 26 and 16km. We took three days to see everything and I think I speak for all of us, but by the end of the 3rd day we were bloody sick of temples. The favourite of ours was Ta Proem, a ruin that has been left to the elements to a certain extent with big trees growing all over the old buildings. Unfortunately now it is most famous as "the one from Tombraider, with Angelina Jolie".

At each temple along the path there was a massive bank of restaurant/souvenir stalls and before you had even got off your bike, you heard cries of "you want water sir?", "something to eat sir?" said in almost pleading voices...I guess when you have 25 restaurants all next to each other, all identical in every way, competition is fierce, especially in low season.

On day two, our visit coincided with celebrations to mark the one year anniversary of Angkor Wat being named as a UNESCO world heritage sight, we saw lots of school kids with musical instruments. We also had a long argument with the gate keeper at one of the temples because we didn't have a hole in our ticket. He couldn't give us our hole, only a perfectly round hole punched by the guy 5km away would do, so Nick rode back and got our holes for us. On the last day we also met a Polish guy on his bicycle who had cycled all the way from Poland! He had clocked up 20,000km cycling through Iran, Pakistan, India etc. amazing!

The nearby town of Siem Reap (which translates as Defeat of Thailand, no love lost there...I think the history is that Thailand and Cambodia were engaged is a battle for a temple on the border, which Cambodia won in the end, also I think the Thais invaded Angkor centuries ago) was tourism central. There were heaps of bars, restaurants, hotels, it was all a bit overwhelming. We found a nice local place to eat called Mr. Grill, which we morphed into Dr. Beef, and spent a few hours there drinking mini beer kegs at our table and eating grilled stuff. We spent our spare time playing 4-player canasta, it is 6-5 to the girls at the moment.

Anyways, I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Don't feel the need to make any special trips to see a temple now after seeing the mother of them all.