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Siem Reap, Cambodia
I'm not ready for this sort of thing
As good a place to start as any, this is the view from atop the hilltop temple of Phnom Bakhong, impressive more for its view than itself. Among the distant jungles and rice fields are the central towers of Angkor Wat, as well as probably hundreds if not thousands of live landmines. Siem Reap province was one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge, as recently as the late 1990s all temple visitors were accompanied by heavily armed guards. Now visitors are only threatened by relatively harmless children selling postcards and t-shirts, not to mention the usual suspects like malaria, e-coli and typhoid.
The star attraction of Siem Reap Province, Angkor Wat is just one of many surviving jungle temples, but probably the only one that anyone has ever heard of. This is the classic view from the other side of the moat and causeway.
If you didn’t like that last classic view of Angkor Wat, here’s another one. The classic views (apparently) just keep coming.
The steep stairs at the center of Angkor Wat are typical of a temple meant to symbolize heaven. If that is the case (and it most certainly is), it isn't that hard to ascend to heaven but most definitely a bitch to get down.
I’m not sure exactly what to write about Angkor Wat, one of the great surviving human achievements and a place that felt deeper than I will ever be able to describe. I could hastily assemble some smart ass comments (as usual), but instead I thought I'd try something different. These are actual quotes from the master, Angelina Jolie, about her week in Siem Reap and Angkor Wat filming Tomb Raider, found through an internet search engine:
"They talk to you about malaria, they give you typhoid shots, they talk to you about keeping mosquitoes off you ... what to eat and what to drink and then they talk to you about landmines," Jolie said. "This has changed my life, being here in this country," Jolie continues. "The world is a lot bigger than I thought it was. There is a lot I have to learn. The world I live in most of the time is very, very small, and we forget that, especially in the community of Hollywood. It can seem very ugly and very small ... (but) the thing in the center is Angkor Wat and that is what rises above other things."
Of all of the temples in that part of the jungle, Angkor Wat is easily the most well know, was probably the busiest and was (in the end) my second favorite. But even at a busy (almost) thousand year old temple in the jungle, you still had moments when you felt like you had it all to yourself.
