Cambodia...aka 40+ Pictures of the Angkor Temples

Even at the early stages of our trip, we both knew that this was going to be one of the harder posts to write. The Angkor temples - outisde of the northern Cambodian city of Siem Reap - are the most impressive collection of ruins we've seen to date (and are also unlikely to be surpassed). The scale is impossible to describe or capture on camera, but as always, we'll do our best. Oh, and we also spent a few days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, which is a fantastic city in its own right.

But before we get there, the approaching holiday season has been a bit strange for us. When we run into scenes like this at the Bangkok airport...

...we're both still confused. We're slowly realizing that Christmas does in fact still occur in locations where it's 90 degrees outside. As frustrating as the long northeast winters get, they do a good job of providing context as to time of year.

Anyways, on to Siem Reap. We decided to get an early start our first morning there and head out to Angkor Wat - the largest and most famous of the temples - for sunrise. We were not alone.

However, it was worth the early morning, as the sun coming up over the five towers was a remarkable sight.

(with a little moon for effect!)

The hotel was kind enough to pack us a breakfast, so we had a little picnic on the lawn.

And finally were able to take in its full glory.

A quick background (well at least the best we can do - we're no experts, so don't hold it against us if we're a bit off!) - Angkor was the capital of the old Khmer Empire, which was one of the largest and most powerful in SE Asia. It is estimated that the city was home to as many as a million people at its height. Many temples were constructed throughout the city, generally between the 9th and 14th centuries. The early ones were originally Hindu sites, but most were ultimately converted to Buddhist temples, generally starting around the 12th/13th century. While the architecture of the temples generally falls into three or four main buckets (depending on when they were built and which emperor commissioned them), Angkor Wat is unequivocally the most impressive. It is surrounded by a giant moat...

...and you need to pass through a number of huge stone gates/walls...

...to reach its inner five towers.

On each of the walls surrounding the temples are giant reliefs, which stretch from floor to ceiling and tell famous stories, both secular and religious.

This artwork, which streches all the way around the perimeter of the wall, is incredibly detailed and has been beautifully restored.

The towers are just as impressive from the inside.

As this is a Buddhist temple, it's no surprise what we found in the highest, center tower.

Even the grounds are remarkable.

And full of potential new friends for Alexis!

We ended up visiting a total of 11 temples over the two days we had in Siem Reap. And that is probably less than half of them! What is amazing is that even the "small" temples would be major tourist attractions just about anywhere else in the world. A few of the other notables that we visited:

Bayon (within Angkor Thom)

Bayon is probably the second most popular temple and is better known as the "face" temple, due to its many towers that have giant faces carved into them.

In addition to the almost 200 expressive faces atop these towers, there are also well preserved reliefs on the temple walls.

Ta Prohm

Alexis remembered this one as the "jungle" temple, as it has largely been unrestored and nature has taken over. Many trees grow up and on top of walls, and vines are prominent throughout. This temple was actually one of the primary sets for the original Tomb Raider movie. You can probably see why...

Baphuon

Another of the Angkor Thom temples, this one was most impressive for its pyramid shape and giant causeway leading to the front gates.

And a victory shot from above, once we managed to climb all the way to the top.

What is so impressive, is that like many other ancient sites, no mortar was used in these temples, All the stones fit perfectly together. The arched ceilings were perhaps the most impressive display of this:

Banteay Srei

One of the older temples, and located a ways away from the rest of the sites, this one was built primarily of red sandstone.

As incredible as the reliefs and decorations were at Angkor Wat and Bayon, they were even more impressive here, in the sandstone.

That is a lot of arms.

Pre Rup

We are only including this one because Mike thinks it looks most like a Zelda dungeon (starting to sense a theme here??).

There were also some cool, seemingly unique features of these towers as well, including lion statue guards and open-topped towers:

And it goes on like this for another 500 photos or so...

If anyone is still reading, Siem Reap was not our only stop in Cambodia. We hopped on the bus for 7 hours and took a trip south to the capital, Phnom Penh, where he had a packed 48 hours to check out the remarkable city.

We didn't waste any time - during a rest stop on the bus ride down, we booked a city food tour for that night that left about an hour after our arrival.

We got our first taste of the city from the tiny balcony of our hotel room, including a few temples, the presidential palace, and the river.

But back to the dinner tour...we were surprised to learn that Phnom Penh is a foodie city, with great restaurants representing almost any cuisine you can imagine. Given the high number of NGOs, the city has attracted a very international crowd and strong expat community that has made its mark on the food scene.

Our first stop on the progressive tour was a rooftop bar with 360 degree views of Phnom Penh...a bit more comprehensive of an orientation to the city than our hotel balcony. We were immediately impressed by its size and how quickly it's changing, evidenced by new buildings and construction all around.

Once the sun went down, we continued onto our next three stops: appetizers at an Australian tapas restaurant, main course at a local Cambodian BBQ restaurant (which included ribs that rival Dinosaur BBQ in NYC), and dessert (and naturally, more cocktails) at a trendy new bar.

Over the course of the evening, we not only enjoyed great food, but also learned more about Cambodian culture and politics, which in large part is shaped by the lasting impact of the Khmer Rouge.

While we knew generally about the reign of the Khmer Rouge, our trip to the prison, S2, and to the Killing Fields was shocking. Everything about it is hard to believe - the recency (1975-1979), the scale (up to 2 million Cambodians), the motive (desire to return to a purely agrarian society), the brutality of the killings, and that those "most responsible" have only very recently begun to stand trial.

The lasting evidence of this genocide (technically, this can't be considered a genocide since people were not targeted based on race or religion, but for being viewed as intellectuals, businessmen, etc.) is obvious even to visitors - there are very few old people. But despite the horror and recency of these events, Cambodians have an overwhelmingly positive and hopeful attitude, speaking volumes about their resiliency.

To end on a lighter note, we rounded out our SE cooking class tour...a topic that is probably getting a bit old at this point. Even we started to get a bit lazy, realizing we'd eaten half of our food before documenting it with a photo.

We perfected our mango salad and validated our hypothesis that everything steamed in a banana leaf is delicious.

Two items of note on Cambodian food / eating: 1. Cambodians love condiments. The food isn't necessarily spicy to start, but comes with sides of sauces and toppings (including chilis!) to heap on top. This became a bit dangerous as we started to get a bit cocky about our chili tolerance. 2. Cambodians have a serious sweet tooth! This too can get dangerous if you're hoping to stay awake more than 2 hours after a meal.

Our time in Cambodia came to an end before we knew it. We were so impressed with this country and its people and are excited to see how it continues to grow and evolve in the coming years.

And with that - it was off to Indonesia...after a long layover (and unexpected sleepover) in the Singapore airport.