Angkor Wat

After taking a month or two off from the Latin American ruins, we felt it was time to go back and explore some ruins here in Cambodia. The Temples of Angkor is the heart and soul of the Cambodian people. They look to these temples for inspiration and national pride as they struggle to rebuild their lives after the Pol Pot's regime. Some people spend a week visiting all the temples and others like ourselves just spend a day seeing and absorbing a small portion of what could take several days. The temples of Angkor are the perfect blend of artistic carvings and structure as well as spiritual devotion. Of the hundreds of temples here, the Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Angkor Wat are the three most magnificent temples due to their size, scale and symmetry. The temples were built between 9th and 13th century.
Since we only had day to visit Angkor, we decided to get up at 4:30 am and go watch the sunrise. The Tuk Tuk picked us up at our hostel and drove us out to Angkor Wat where we sat and watched the sunrise over the temple. It was beautiful- SO much better then the sunrise we watched in Tikal (Guatemala). It was beautiful, although Heather only got to see the beginning before she feel asleep on the ruins! When she woke up, we walked through Angkor Wat, the mother temple due to its unbelievable structure and size. Angkor Wat is the largest religious building in the world. After we walked through, we headed to the ancient city of Angkor Thom to see Bayon and Baphuon. The City of Angkor Thom was built by Angkor's greatest king, Jayavarman VII and who built Bayon around 1200. Although Angkor Wat is the mother temple, Bayon is Angkor's most stunning temple do to its eerie faces that stare down at you while you walk around. Apparently there are 216 faces of Avalokiteshvara watching over the tourist as they explore this memorable temple. From here we traveled by tuk tuk and stopped at the Terrace of Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King, Phnom Bakheng, Ta Keo until we arrived at Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is famous for two reasons, one being that Tomb Raider and Two Brothers were filmed here. The other reason is that it has started to be taken over by jungle vegetation. As we walked through the narrow corridors, we saw the roots of several huge trees hug the stonework of this temple. It was quite a sight to be able to see a small vision of what the archeologist's saw when they re-discovered these temples. Our day visit here was incredible and definitely a different sight then what we had been used to from L.A. The Mayan and Inka ruins were big stone buildings focused around the astronomical calender, where these temples display exquisite artistic stone carvings. Both similar in the sense of being big stone buildings, yet the feelings you get from walking around from both is so different. We both loved it and wish we had another day or two to explore the other temples, but our time is too short in SE Asia!! (but whats new!)

Phnom Phen

We have managed to travel to three countries in three days-Indonesia, Malaysia, and now Cambodia! It has been a little overwhelming and a bit exhausting, but we are glad to have finally made it here in Phnom Phen, Cambodia. Upon our arrival, we were approached by a tuk tuk driver and a taxi driver who offered to take us to our hotel...we decided to go with the tuk tuk. The drive was fun and definitely different then the typical taxi drives. Especially because the driver payed more attention to us then the road... a little concerning, yet funny all at the same time. For our first day here we headed down to the river front to visit the National Museum and the Royal Palace. We tried to go into the palace, but we were not dressed appropriately (we needed to have covered shoulders and knees)so we had to go back the next day. After we were turned down, we headed back to the hotel and ended up resting for the late afternoon, and then slept through the night. Since we were finally more rested, we got up this morning energized and pumped to return to the Royal Palace. Wow, is pretty much all i can say... the detail that went into the building are amazing. The RP, as well as temples and building, here are just amazing, nothing like we have seen yet on our trip. The colors of the building are so fresh and warm with gold, white, yellow, blue and a little bit of burnt orange... what a sight. After our visit we stopped for a late breakfast and then found a tuk tuk that took us to the Killing Fields. Boy, we not prepared for the emotions we felt this afternoon. So here is a quick run down of Cambodia's history... on April 17, 1975 Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot's leadership. This then implemented one of the most bloody revolutions the world has ever seen, which is now seen as geniced. During Pol Pot's regime, which was between 1975-1979 roughly 2 million Cambodians died. Today we visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek where roughly 17,000 men, women, and children were executed. Upon walking in we saw the white stupa (religious monument) which holds 9000 human skulls which were found during excavations. Seeing the skulls and reading the sign posts which told briefly about what went on here, we were taken back at the idea of one human being taking the lives of their own people. Emotionally struck, yet eager to learn and understand more of what went on, we headed to Tuol Slend Museum- which was once Pol pot's Security Prison 21. Before it was a prison, it was once Tuol Sway Prey High School. During the regime the prisoners were morally violated, electrocuted, beaten, slashed, and water bourted for "miss behavior." Those who died during torture were buried in the prison grounds and most everyone else was sent to the killing field. Today these former class rooms which were then turned into cells hold pictures of prisoners who were torched on rusty metal beds. The rooms also shared stories of Cambodians who survived, as well as mug shots of most of the prisoners who were held there. The mug shot pictures of the children as well as some of the others who conveyed strong fear in their eyes were the worst to look at. After a while we just had to say it was enough our hearts and stomachs could not take any more. It is a great thing that Cambodia wants to preserve these places but it can only be consumed in small dosages. By preserving these ugly and tragic years we can only hope that something as horrible as this will never happen again. Our heart goes out to all the Cambodians who suffered through this and may those who died rest in peace.