Hi again, yet another delayed journal update, I really have no excuse apart from being lazy.
So after getting ripped of at the Cambodian border by visa officials and then enduring a 8 hour journey on the bumpiest road that I have ever been on (my cheeks are still numb) we got to the town of Siem Reap which neighbors the temple complex of Angkor.
The temples where built between the 9th and the 13th century and where constructed for worship for either Buddhism or Hindu followers.
The main temple is 'Angkor Wat' I'm told that its the worlds largest religious building, followed by 'The Bayon' whose distinctive feature is having 216 giant stone faces and 'Ta Prohm’ a jungle temple, where the jungle has infiltrated the temples grounds and merged with it. Ta Phromn was my favorite temple by far.
I found Angkor Wat a little disappointing when compared to Borobudur which I visited a few months ago in Indonesia, although Borobudur is not as big (in area) as Angkor Wat, it certainly is taller.
One of the redeeming features that I loved about Angkor Wat was the fact it had Lots of steep staircases made from crumbling stone with signs next to them saying 'climb at your own risk'- I am always up for a challenge so I spent most of a afternoon climbing up and down the sides of the temple.
Check out the temple pictures, some of them are stunning.
After a couple of days it was time to move on. Me and a couple of other Brits took a mini-ferry type boat down the river towards the town of Battambang. In this case the journey was more important then the destination as we cruised past little water villages with the local kids waving at us, and we duly waved back.
We stayed just one night at Battambang before heading 200km south to the capital of Cambodia Phnom Penh (where I am now). Over the next few days I will be visiting the killing fields as well as 'S21' the school that was used by the Khmer Rouge as a detention center which killed about 100 prisoners a day!
I will update soon. x
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