Cambodia: the temples

Before you start thinking I'm lame and traveled halfway around the world to eat bacon at a hotel, let me tell you about the adventuring.

I'm standing on the roots of a tree that is growing in, over
 andaround the walls of the temples at Ta Prohm.  
That tree is GINORMOUS. Also, pretty crazy that the 
roots are growing together with the stones and not 
destroying/crumbling the walls.

When planning the trip, I knew I wanted to go to Angkor Wat and see the temple ruins. I had come to this conclusion based on a few things:

• I like big things. Large architecture fascinates me.



The BF and I are standing in front of the 
Bayon, where they think the royal
 family lived  (supposedly) in 1100.

• I like old things. Everything in America is SO new and young. Even the old stuff in America is just not that old. Growing up in North Carolina, I'm well-versed in things like "circa houses" on the coast, the early fishing industry, colonial America, Pocahontas and the Lost Colony, etc. But even that stuff is only a couple hundred years old. Europe, Asia, South America...these are places where they have REALLY old things.

The faces that line the entrance gate to Angkor 
Thom. (the better looking faces have been 
restored by conservation efforts) The faces on 
either side of the entrance depict the gods 
and demons using a snake to churn the
ocean, according to Hindu mythology. 
This story is depicted in several places 
throughout the Angkor ruins, but nowhere
 as LARGE as the gates to Angkor Thom.

•  I like looking down at stuff from up high. I like the window seat on airplanes, I love the Eiffel Tower and even though I'm supposed to be a too cool for school Seattleite, I think the Space Needle is pretty cool. (I dont love the $16 ticket fee to go to the top, but I do love the Needle.)

Now, these things may seem valid enough to warrant a trip halfway around the world, but there's one more. When I was a kid, I had this game called GeoSafari. It was a digital base/screen with different cards that you would put on the screen and it would ask you different questions and you had to match the answers. The topics were all geography/world history based, like US states and capitals, world countries and capitals, traditional garb, country flags, languages, etc. One of the cards was world landmarks and the card included Machu Picchu, the Tower of Pisa, Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China and Angkor Wat, among others. Ever since then, I've had this weird interest in seeing all of those places I learned about as a kid. The interesting part is that even though I learned the basic stats on these places as a kid, I didnt really know much about them. Still dont. I'm not sure I could have told you Angkor Wat was in Cambodia until a few months ago. And I'm not sure I knew it was temple ruins until more recently than that. So it's with that lack of knowledge that I planned a trip to Angkor Wat.

I'm standing in a doorway at the Bayon. 
I like to take pictures standing in doorways. 
Not sure where that comes from....

With all that going on in my head, I was SUPER excited to see the temple ruins. All of them. In addition to Angkor Wat, there are dozens of other temples in the area, as part of the greater Angkor Archeological Park. Over the course of three days, we saw a LOT, but not everything.

I'm standing at the top of the inner temple of the Bayon, 
where the royal family spent most of their time.