Just got back from a short little New Year's excursion to an extremely popular tourist spot & well-known city in northern Cambodia called Siem Reap. Ancient temples, including Angkor Wat (built in the 12th century), Bayon, and Ta Phrom (where scenes from the movie Tomb Raider were shot... not that I've seen the movie as of yet, probably because it's starring Angelina Jolie, but that's a whole different story that I'll spare you ;).
The temples? AMAZING!!!
I saw the sunset the first evening from a small temple up on a mountain that overlooks the countryside, which was really nice except for the other 1,000 tourists that also flocked to the spot, basically overtook the temple, and you could barely see over people to watch the actual sunset. But... it was cool to be there ;)
The next day we went to Angkor Wat which is absolutely a sight to be seen, with a surrounding moat and the whole shabang! I LOVE moats! It's the world's largest religious building and a national symbol for all of Cambodia (even making it onto the official Cambodian flag).
We took so many pictures at Angkor Wat that we managed to sufficiently kill the camera battery, which was kind of a bummer because we went to a few other temples after that, including the Bayon Temple, which were so different than Angkor Wat & definitely worthy of lots more photo-taking. So what do you do??? Re-visit the temples a few days later with a fully charged camera battery! Yay!
Bayon Temple had 50-something towers in it, each with 4 carved faces on each side... I'll post pictures soon because you just have to SEE it! And as we were headed to Ta Phrom, our tuk tuk driver said, "let's stop by this other smaller temple because the view from the top is really good." So we hopped out, went inside & looked up at the narrowest sets of almost completely vertical stone stairs you've ever seen. What???? I'm supposed to climb UP this thing?! Are you KIDDING me?
Many of the other temples had narrow stairs that you had to climb up using your hands, but they were NOTHING compared to this. After pulling myself up 2 sets of these stairs, while purposefully concentrating on not looking down, my fear of heights was freaking me out, I opted out of the last set to the tower, and just sat there thinking about how in the world I was going to get down. We walked around the top of the temple until we found another way down with SLIGHTLY wider steps that took us over 5 minutes to climb down because we were going one at a time at the slowest pace ever. Another couple from Germany that was a little bit ahead of us was talking to us the whole time - we were pretty much all yapping on about how crazy this was, that we were all going to die (or maybe that was just me! ;), and that this would never meet the safety regulations of any tourist site in the USA. We're not in Kansas anymore folks! Not at all...
Put this on your MUST-DO LIST: See the sunrise at the Angkor Wat temple.
We all know how often I actually see the sun rise, but this was absolutely worth it! I left the hotel at 5:00 am, took a tuk tuk out to the Angkor Wat temple in the dark, and I felt like an explorer going out on some kind of special adventure. There are a bunch of stands outside where you can buy a nice hot cup of coffee or tea (it's pretty chilly there in the mornings) and you walk by flashlight into the temple until the sun rises. Since Angkor Wat is massively bigger than any other temple you've ever been to, it doesn't matter how many tourists have dragged themselves out of bed to join you there, it's still spectacular!
And as far as the Ta Phrom Temple goes, there's nothing I can even say. You'll just have to look at the pictures I post of it because there are these incredibly massive tree roots that have grown inside and all around the stones in the temple. You'll see... you'll see ;)
New Years Eve in Siem Reap included a full street party in the middle of the city where all of the restaurants and shops are. Justin Bieber & Cristina Aguilera were thumpin' & shakin' the speakers all the way through town. We found a cool bar/cafe just before midnight where we sat in a bungalow & listened to someone blaring through the speakers in Khmer. Then at midnight a couple of us joined in on a conga line around the bar and attempted to dance in the Cambodian-style, which only resulted in all the white people looking strangely bizarre to the locals, I'm sure, but we all had fun just packed in there together. And the locals seemed highly entertained ;)
So Happy New Year's everyone! I hope 2011 is starting out wonderfully well for you. I need to think up some New Years Resolutions - I forgot about that! Tell me what yours are & I'll copy them ;)
