During the Golden Week holiday in China, I visited Siem Reap, Cambodia, and got to see the city and the ancient Angkor Wat Temple among other interesting sights.
Cambodia is a poor country if measured by the average person's income, with a corrupt, authoritarian government thinly veiled in so-called democracy, however during our visit we saw many beautiful sights and friendly faces.
Of course we saw the famous temples of the 12th century, Angkor Wat. Built by a king dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and later used by Buddhists, it's survived remarkably well. There are many temples of similar style in the surrounding area, the coolest I thought was the "Tree Temple" where giant trees have grown around the ruins, creating really interesting visuals where the trees seem to be almost melting over the temple towers and walls.
We also saw the "floating village" where the ground is flooded most of the year. In fact all the people seem used to the flooding all over town and countryside. Even while we were there it rained a few times, didn't seem like that much rain, but many parts of the street were completely flooded and roadside shops and markets just hiked their pants up and kept going like it was no big deal. We saw the town center where there were many backpackers, tourists, and locals hanging out in bars with live music and restaurants with various international cuisines.
Here are some more pics below from my trip to Siem Reap.
Above, the approach to the main temple(artists representation of main temple below), and a panoramic of the entrance.
Out the back of our Tuktuk taxi.
Finally here's an artist's representation of what Angkor Wat would have looked like with the original decoration(Bruno Levy).
I reserve the right to use one of the tree temple pics for a Tree Tuesday post.
Hope you enjoyed.
