Angkor Wat

I forgot to mention 'nail in the coffin' of Keith Gushard's soundtrack: Wind of Change by Scorpians. I forgot because I couldn't think of the name. Nicole, however, immediately knew the song name, band name, album, and year produced. Makes you'miss the good old days of black and white concert footage. Those lyrics still ring true today do they not? Judge for yourself:

Okay, so I do have something more interesting to talk about. Angkor Wat. We chose to use free bikes offered by our hostel to get to and around the temples - sounded like an opportunity to exercise, and save money. As one would geuss, the free bikes weren't in great shape, but we both felt it was still the best way to get around. Although riding through the dust and smog of Siep Reap wasn't fun, everything after the city was beautiful. By the time we bought our passes and actually made it to Angkor Wat it was about 1130 and we were sure we'd be stuck in crowds. Instead, all the big groups were being bused back to the city for lunch with their tour group making it much more enjoyable. There were still plenty of people in the ruins, but nothing compared to the hoards we saw piling in as we left.

Angkor Wat was one of the sites we definitely wanted to see on this trip and it lived up to the hype. Truly an amazing structure and testament to Khmer Empire. Interesting, also, to learn about the Kmer becuase they're not really brought up in popular history due to having little to do with any modern society. According to one of our books, however, the city of Angkor was at 1 million people while London was still only 50,000.

It's hard to due justice in description of he temple and I don't think the pictures really capture the entire scene, either. Nicole said that the structures were more impressive than Machu Pichu. We were both really impressed with the detail of the building and bas-reliefs. After wandering through Angor Wat for a few hours we biked to nearby Bayon. The Bayon temple lies in the middle of Angkor Thom, an ancient city surrounded by 12km of stone walls. In order to enter the city we had to bike across a stone bridge lined with giant stone figures holding a naga and then another 2kms to the temple. Famous for its hundreds of smiling gods, Bayon was slightly less overwhelming in size than Angkor Wat, but still impressive in detail. The crowds really started to pile in towards sunset so we headed back to town for dinner. We've got a three day pass so there'll be plenty more time to explore. The area has an amazing group of ruins and, believe it or not, we won't be able to see it all in three days. Publishing pictures here is slow here, so there aren't as many as I'd like to post. I'll try to add more in the next few days.