cambodia 2

after phnom penh, we took a bus to siem reap...the town itself isn't any great shakes, but about 6km outside town are the ruins of angkor...angkor is actually several former royal cities, built by a number of different khmer rulers...
to see all the ruins you have a number of choices...first, how to get there...we decided to hire bikes, and pedal ourselves around...apparently this isn't a common choice, because we didn't see anyone else doing the same...we saw a lot of people who had hired tuk tuk drivers for the day...the second choice is what kind of ticket you want to buy...1 day, 3 day, or 7 day...we went with the three day...there are over 100 ruins in the area, and we figured 3 days would be good to see a few of them...(as it was, after three days, we were more than templed out)...the tickets were expensive, but angkor is easily the most well known thing in cambodia, so we didn't have much of a choice...
the city first built was called hariharalaya (yeah, you have to slow down and read it a couple times before saying it out loud, correctly) but the area is now called ruolos...there are about 3 temples worth seeing in that area...i did it on day 3 of our ticket...riding my bike out i missed the turnoff the first time, and rode an extra 5km or so...not a good thing, since that involved turning around and riding back, and the day was HOT...oh well...the ruins at ruolos were similar to all the others i had seen, but that was expected...not very crowded, which was nice...one of them has a still active wat right next door...it was on this day that i ended up with severe heat exhaustion...since the ruolos ruins are a bit farther than the rest, i rode farther on the totally exposed highway, in the 40-42 degree heat...HOT HOT HOT...apparently, drinking 6L a day of water wasn't enough, even with taking breaks under trees every now and again...i had to cut this day short because i realized i wasn't feeling well at all and still had to get back to town...i couldn't cool down, despite taking several showers, and sitting in front of a fan for a while...ugh...that night i couldn't sleep much, because i still wasn't cool...ugh...
the first day we went to the ruins we started with the most famous of them all...angkor wat...the profile of angkor wat is on the cambodian flag...it's beautiful, no doubt...but after all the hype, neither layna nor i felt it matched up...(or maybe we've seen too many temples during this trip)...angkor wat was built by suryavarman II, who was one of the greatest khmer rulers...it "only" took 40 years to build, and afterward was a city whose population was at least 750,000!! this guy was a pretty good ruler...he rewarded those who were good at their jobs, like artisans, ministers, courtiers, etc...he built up a good relationship with the chinese, but didn't like his next door neighbors, the chams...he wasn't so good militarily...he tried to go after some cham (current vietnam) lands and failed...anywho...not far from angkor wat is the former city of angkor thom...built by another ruler (one of the jayavarmans i think?) the most famous temple in the city is the bayon...with 54 towers on the third level with four faces each, you always feel like you are being watched...there are 216 faces in all, and it feels like you can climb all over the temple for quite a while...also in angkor thom are the elephant terrace, and leper king terrace...(and a bunch of others)
i could go on and on about all the temples i saw, but it gets a bit boring...lots of temples, lots of ruins...the ones i liked best were the ones that didn't have a lot of people hanging about...several of the ruins have trees growing in them, and through them, and under them, and over them...beautiful...i wonder if they'll ever do anything to stop the eventual takeover by the jungle...
one of the days i was riding around i met three peace corps workers...currently, the only peace corps program in cambodia is teaching english, though these three said some health care workers will be coming in july...they said it really was a good idea to wear long sleeves, but i just couldn't do it...too HOT!!
after three days of templing, we decided to stay in town and actually see the town...i read about a silkworm farm just outside town, so i caught a shuttle out there, and learned all about silk...a labour intensive process, to say the least...we got a chance to see the silkworms eating, you could even hear it!! they eat for 24 days, all mulberry leaves...yum...hee hee...walking around town was nice too, though there wasn't much to see...it's relaxing though...
our last stop in cambodia after siem reap was sihanoukville...no one really comes to cambodia with the idea of spending time on a beach, but this is the place to find a cambodian beach...we came because we heard it was the quickest and fastest place to get a vietnamese visa...it was certainly fast, it only took about 10 minutes!!! i loved the market, sooo much good food to choose from:)