Ancient Angkor

Moonrise for our first glimpse of Angkor Wat

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We arrived in Siem Reap in the early afternoon, giving ourselves plenty of time to scout out a nice guesthouse.  We settled on Rithyrin Villa where for $7 we got a big ensuite double fan room and free breakfast - stoked!  This town is awesome.  We quickly became oriented wandering the tiny streets lined with restaurants, silk shops, and bakeries.  It is obvious this little town has experienced tremendous growth and that tourism has had a large impact on development, but it still retains its quaint charm.  We love it here.  Steph can do all handicraft shopping she wants in the boutiques and local markets, while Sam interacts with the playful personalities of the Cambodians.  Food and beer is cheap, and the sunsets are phenomenal.  We bought 3-day passes for the Angkor Archeaological Park ($40/pass, a bit steep, but if it goes to preserving the ruins you can't complain).  It is hard to put into words the brilliance of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and the surrounding temples.  The area is so vast that we hired bikes for 2 days so we could explore on our own.  The intricacy and details of the carvings done on every square inch of all the temples within the park are astounding.  The temples themselves are massive stone structures spreading several kilometers wide, and towering into the skies.  It is hard to imagine how the Khmers were able to move and stack such massive stones, creating such beautiful temples.  It's even more difficult to fathom how they were able to perfectly carve and sculpt the stone into stories depicting their history and religious beliefs.  The architecture and details are so complex, and these ruins span 100's of kilometers through Cambodia!  Sadly, many of the temples have been ravaged and destroyed by time as well as being eaten up by strangler trees.  To have the opportunity to see such an amazing and ancient civilization, was like walk through the pages of National Geographic.