Temples, Temples and... more Temples!

Some detailed stone sculptures at the temples. I was fascintated by these. I can't imagine how much work it was to do one of these! and there were hundreds at one temple alone!

Feb 26-29

Our first day in Siem Reap we spent recovering from our crazy bus ride by emailing and reading and exploring the city a little.

We spent the next two days exploring the temples of Angkor Wat. They were spectacular!
The first day Tiff and I hoped on the back of a motorbike and our driver Modey took us around to many different temples. We would explore and then Modey would take us to the next temple. We were a sight to see as it was Tiffany, our driver Modey, and I on this dinky little motorbike with me sandwiched in the middle. It was funny because most tourists we passed were on proper tuk-tuks!

Day two we decided to cycle to the temples and around, from our guesthouse. I think we cycled about 30km that day, and b/c of the heat, by the end of the day I thought I was going to pass out! It didn't help that we accidentally cylced to the airport on our way to one of the temples. That added another 10k. We were happily chatting away when we reached the temple and as soon as we got off it hit us. We needed some sugar in our blood... quickly! When we finally arrived at the temple neither of us were talking. We had our baguette with cheese and an apple in hand and that's all I could think about! There was no talking until after both of us were well into our lunch. I bit into my apple which was filled with tiny little worms. That broke the silence as I dramatically spit my apple as far as I could! On our second day we went to the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed with Angelina Jolie.

Cambodians are such happy people despite everything they've been through in recent years. It's quite amazing actually. They are the friendliest I've encountered in all of Asia. They also know the most English and the most facts about other countries. i.e. I've had numerous conversations with kids at the temples that went like this:
kids: "miss, where you from?"
me: Canada
kids: the capital of Canada is Ottawa, people speak French and English there. You have a new prime minister named Steven Harper. Before that Paul Martin. Before that Jean Cretien.
Then they went on to speak to me a bit in French. We also had a couple Cambodian girls speak to us in Korean b/c we told them we taught English in Korea. Smart kids!

The temples were definitely worth it! I ran into sooo many Koreans at the temple and said "Anyung Haseo" (Hello) and whatever else I could in Korean. It was fun because they were surprised to speak to us! I'm starting to tell the difference between Korean and Japanese quite easily. Even by the way they dress gives it away.

Tomorrow we'll be on our way to Phnom Penh...