Tomb Raiding in Cambodia - Exploring the Angkor Temples

Siem Reap is a fun city. It's on a river (come to think of it, all the cities I went to in Cambodia were situated on rivers), and has a good downtown scene, including a restaurant with comfortable chairs, free popcorn, and 50 cent beers. Good stuff. A couple bars also have huge projection TVs which are great for watching World Cup on. However, believe it or not, we didn't come to Siem Reap just for cheap beers, big TVs, and a river view. Siem Reap's claim to fame is its proximity to a series of temples built in Angkor between the 9th and 13th centuries as part of the Khmer Empire, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat, one of the 8th wonders of the world.

After arriving in Siem Reap, we were once again mobbed by tuk-tuk drivers, and once again picked the least pushy. After a long search, we finally found a good guesthouse, and made arrangements for a tuk-tuk driver and guide for the temples for the next day and took a quick tour of a local orphanage (I'm trying to find a place to volunteer in Cambodia, unfortunately it looks like volunteering in Siem Reap will be a no-go - all of the Orphanages there are being mobbed by volunteers on summer break). We then relaxed a bit, and went to the aforementioned cheap bear / free popcorn place to unwind from a long day of traveling, then called it a night.

Over the next two days we toured 9 temples, took about 300 photos, collectively drank about 12 big bottles of water, and had at least 35 children try to sell us cheap pirated copies of Angkor-Wat related books. Quite exhausting. Good times overall, except for the fact that our professional tour guide didn't know the proper time to wake up and catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, meaning that we ended up waking up at 4:30 AM just in time to see the last 30 seconds of the sunrise (I was only able to tak one picture from a distance - by the time we got to the good photo spot the sky had lightened). Not a good way for us to start off the day. Luckily, we had a 3 day pass (and only used two days), so the next morning I woke up before our bus, ran (yes, ran. Nothing like a good ol' 4AM 8k run to start the day off right) to Angkor Wat and got the photos. And yes, I know I'm crazy.

Enough blabbing, on to the pictures!

cool carvings above a doorway at Pre Rup temple

an elephant surveys the jungle at Mebon Temple

the jungle is slowly reclaiming some of the temples

lions guarding the ruins of Preah Khan

group photo in the window of Bayon Temple

some of the many giant faces of the Bayon Temple

nose-to-nose with one of the giant faces. My guide LOVED setting up these kind of shots, and also took a picture of us where the spires of Angkor Wat looked like they were our hats. Whatever floats your boat. . .

group pic at the Tom Raider tree in Ta Prohm, nicknamed the Tomb Raider Temple because this temple was shown in the Tomb Raider movie. (If you haven't already guessed, the Tomb Raider Tree was the specific tree shown in the movie)

group pic at one of the giant trees in the Tomb Raider temple

ancient archaeological evidence that the Khmer people were the first to invent emoticons! OMG!

the "must-take" Angkor Wat photo - Angkor Wat and the reflecting pool

The other must-take pic - Angkor Wat sunrise. Well worth waking up at 4AM for the second day in a row so I could get this pic

Angkor Wat is an absolutely gorgeous ruin, and it looks amazing in the sunrise. But despite all that, this one dude was obsessed with this horse's rear end, and I swear was taking pictures for at least 10 min. Again, whatever floats your boat. . .