Archive for September 15th, 2008

Covering more than twenty-five miles of temples, Angkor Wot was built by Khmer kings as monuments of self-glorification in the ninth century and completed three hundred years later.  Not a feeling you get when you go to the taj or the pyramids, but exciting nonetheless. 

In the fifteen century Angkor Wot was abandoned to the jungles after an invasion by Siam and forgotten about until French explorers rediscovered it in the nineteenth century.  Since then, the battled-scarred temples with their beautiful statues, tone sculptures and multi layered towers remain one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.

UNESCO World Heritage Site #6

The Angelina Joley photo, a scene from Tomb Raider, apparently!

Siem Reap is the gateway to Cambodia’s spiritual and cultural heartbeat.  The town was a quiet, sleepy backwater until a few years ago, but it’s quickly reinventing itself as a sophisticated centre for the new wave of visitors passing through each year.  If Cambodia is hot right now, then Siem Reap is at boiling point, the one place everyone coming to Cambodia will hit during their visit (Lonely Planet).

Most claim the Lonely Planet to be the traveller’s bible, and for us it is, but sometimes it gets its blatantly wrong.  Siem Reap is not a ‘charming town with rural qualities’, it’s an overcrowded pit with nagging tuk tuk drivers and touts leaving you feeling vulnerable and scammed at every turn.

The whole of Cambodia has had it’s fair share of hardship and grief in recent years, especially during Pol Pot’s genocidal Khumer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, and this is especially true for the people of Siem Reap who were in the heart of the troubles.  It is only in recent years that the country has been able to put the past aside and focus on the future – this development s pretty evident as you tour around the town. 

This aside, we’ve enjoyed ourselves here hugely, especially as a foursome, and are looking forward to exploring the country a little more.