Angkor Wat - Cambodia
/Chuck and I were really excited to visit Angkor Wat, the famous temple complex in Cambodia which is the largest religious monument in the entire world. I expected it to be a lot like Bagan with thousands of temples spread across a plain divided only by low brush and tall grasses. Instead, I was surprised to find that there are a lot fewer temples, which are individually quite large. Each one was very unique, and since the climate is wetter, many temples have massive moats around them. The jungle is slowly taking over many of the temples, and you see huge trees growing from the walls.
The tourism infrastructure is far more developed in Angkor Wat than in Bagan, which meant that there were many more tourists in the former than in the later. However, we got an early start each morning at around 6:30 am, so that helped. An article we read from an archaeologist who has been working in Angkor Wat for over seven years mentioned that visitors should remember that the Angkor Wat area shouldn't be thought of as a collection of temples. It was actually a massive city that had amazing temples inside of it. Back then, "the whole landscape was completely cleared and filled with rice fields, while temples and palaces were covered in gold."
We spent three days visiting various temples. I won't go into detail here about all of the different temples we saw, but it was truly an incredible visit. The last day I was pretty anxious, as we headed to New Zealand next to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Tania Peterson, to celebrate the holidays with them.
