Siem Reap

I have fallen off the blogging wagon again. It happens. I am back, if only for a moment, to play a little catch up. We will start with our visit to Siem Reap.

We intended to stay in Siem Reap for four days, though we were hoping to be ready to move on in three. We enjoyed the city more than we thought we would and ended up staying for an entire week! The number one reason for this was not, in fact, the Angkor Archealogical Site, beautiful as it was, but we stayed for the food.

Food is usually the number one thing that makes or breaks a town. Food or hammocks really. Across from our hostel was another hostel with an awesome restaurant. It was cheap and delicious -- two things we adore. We had plenty of traditional Khmer food. The interesting thing about Khmer food is that we can't find the same meals in different restaurants... they all seem to serve different "traditional' Khmer food. how does that work?

Aside from the food, which was excellent, we also enjoyed the Ankgor Archealogical Site. We purchased a three day pass as there was much to see and we wanted to take our time seeing it. The only thing that disappointed me in the park was the lack of information given at each site. There were billboards that explained the conservation of the sites, but nothing to tell of the history or significance of the massive temples. I think that would have helped me connect a bit more. Instead I was just in awe of how beautiful they were, but I would have appreciated and enjoyed reading about the people who lived there and what they were used for. Some of the sites held entire cities!

On our first day in the park we decided to bicycle from our hostel to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was about 5 km from our hostel and we ended up leaving later than we anticipated, at 09:30. It was already hot and humid, but we made it. We spent a few hours walking around and appreciating the sites and sounds. We watched monkeys playing in the forest while we had a snack and we climbed many many stairs. The Wat was beautiful! Stunning in fact, especially when one considers the time in which it was built. The heat and humidity wiped us out and at 14:00 we decided to head home rather than continue on to other temples. After all, we still have two more days of exploration ahead of us.

We hired tuk tuk drivers and did a full day tour and a half day tour on the following days. All the temples were amazing, but they start looking the same after a while. We were pretty templed out by the end of the third day so it is a good thing that the last temple we visited, Ta Prohm, was our favourite.

Ta Phrom was absolutely stunning! I enjoyed it because it was an engaging juxtaposition of tree and stone, organic and inorganic, thriving and ruin. It was breathtaking and mysterious and awesome!  This temple was unique; you never knew what would be around the next corner or through the next doorway. It wasn't necessarily the temple itself that created this mystery, but the unexpected dominance of nature. It was amazing to see giant trees growing over, between, and through the stone structure. Even so, the trees didn't appear to bring destruction, they only added to the beauty. As I said, it was absolutely stunning.