Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Today is temple day. First, we visited Angkor Wat. We got our tickets yesterday, as they take your picture and then print out a pass which is checked as the bus approaches the temple complex. This way we avoided any lines in the morning.

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a wide moat, so the first image I had was of lotus flowers growing next to the floating bridge.

Yet we start on a sour note. Seems the Khmer Rouge used the complex as a military base. So, the outside has bullet holes from the battle that ousted them.

Angkor Wat started as a Hindu temple, so we are met by a statue of Vishnu as we enter a side door

As ruling families come and go, the winners establish their favorite religions. So, most of the movable statues of Hindu and Buddhist faiths have been destroyed or stolen. What Cambodia has is in the museum we visited yesterday. But no one stole the wall carvings. Below is a carved mural of Hanuman and his monkey army assisting Rama. Some of the relief is darker due to 1000 years of people touching.

We exit the outer walls and are greeted by the temple itself. The towers are in the distance behind another set of walls.

To make the distances easier to understand, here is a picture from Wikipedia.

As we get closer, I was struck by the scale.

The line to climb to the top was over an hour wait, so I wondered around instead. I found a large Buddha shrine at one side of the temple.

All along the walls are carvings of Apsara, a type of Hindu dancing angel. Many have had their breasts darkened over the ages due to the… “admiration” of passersby.

The temple is carved from sandstone, and I am in awe of the detail work. They even carved out window panes.

Many fellow guests on the ship told me to not miss “the balloon ride”, and I saw a tethered balloon in the distance. So, about an hour before our gather-for-lunch time I started walking. And walking. The distance was misleading, as it was over a mile away. Fortunately, I was intercepted by fellow guests who were returning, so they gave me their motorcycle-trailer taxi.

$15 USD for 10 minutes of over 100 meters in the air. The 30 degF drop in temperature alone was worth it. There was a lot of haze in the air, so not many images came out.

After lunch we continued our temple day. Stay tuned.