Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia

This place really should be on everyone’s bucket list. We have been hitting all the best ruins around the world so we had to include this into this year’s Southeast Asia itinerary. Angkor Wat and all the other surrounding temples are worthy of all the good things we heard about them. The statues, carved rocks, and towers of decaying old stones have just an other worldly feel to them. There are crowds of tourists from all over the world here to see this UNESCO world heritage site but the temples are so spread out that we often were touring some of the outer sites nearly by ourselves.

During the daytime, the temperatures were around 95 degrees so we got tired of touring in a few hours. We bought a 3 day pass and hired a tuk-tuk driver to drive us around to the best sites. We used the same driver that my brother’s family used a couple of years ago. He was a really friendly guy and tried to explain some of what we were seeing but there was quite a bit of a language barrier so we ended up borrowing his guide book for more info. He would pick us up at 9am, we would see 2 or 3 temples and then he would take us to a restaurant for lunch. After lunch we would see a couple more temples but usually we were hot and tired enough to be back at our condo by 3 to cool off in the pool. This is the first Airbnb we have stayed in for a while and it was nice to have a couch, kitchen and washing machine. We paid around $85 a night for a 2 bedroom which is more than a lot of the places in Cambodia but it was so nice, that we don’t regret our housing decision

It was really interesting to compare the Khmer ruins with all the Mayan ruins we have seen in the last year or so. A lot of the structures were similar but so much of the carvings and symbolism were very different. The Khmer temples started as Brahman Hinduism but were converted to Buddhist before they were abandoned in the 15th century. There were some large carved walls depicting real and mythical battles that were very impressive. We saw many statues of Hindu gods, elephants, monkeys, lions and large snakes. A lot of the ruins were in poor shape and many of the wonky reconstructions looked like they were ready to fall over. We visited a museum on our first day in Siem Reap that explained a lot of what we would see the rest of the week, but we still don’t understand it as well as we do the Mayan, Zapotec, Aztec and Inca ruins. I am going to spend some time doing some more reading and research to understand the civilization and what happened to them.

Our driver also took us to a the Land Mine museum. We learned of the horrors that land mines can do to innocent people for years. It was started by a man, Aki Ra, who set thousands of mines when he was a forced child soldier for the Khmer Rouge. He escaped the army and became a refugee in Vietnam. Since the war, he has dedicated his life to removing over 50,000 mines. There are millions of mines still in Cambodia and they still kill and maim people every year. It is frustrating that Trump has decided to opt out of the world landmine treaty that Obama and most of the rest of the world had already signed. Another reason to be embarrassed by our country.

We ate all of our dinners out at the restaurants in downtown Siem Reap and were very happy with the crazy low Cambodian prices. We tried a lot of new foods but a lot of the dishes were similar to other South East Asia cuisines of fried noodles and rice. The Cambodian food just had their own flavor and flair that we enjoyed just like we enjoy Vietnamese, Malayasian and Thai food. The restaurant prices though were similar to street food prices that we see in other countries. We were able to meet up with 2 other nomad couples for dinner one evening which was really nice.

Interestingly in Cambodia, prices are listed in US dollars, as they’ve pegged their currency, the Riel, to USDs. But we had all our cash in Riels, so we were constantly converting US prices to local currency and paying that way; everyone also accepts the good ol’ american greenback.

I have taken so many pictures from our temple touring that I would like to finish out this episode with some more Khmer ruins and everyone’s favorite- monkey pics. Next week, we are traveling to another new country for us- Laos!