Disclaimer: I took 275 pictures over the course of the Siem Reap/Angkor Wat weekend...so this post is mainly composed of those pictures. If you're looking for some extensive prose, you'll have to wait till my next post (about my Rosh Hashanah dinner in Phnom Penh).
Little kids playing in the fields before the enormous thunderstorm.
The actual color of the fields a second before the storm.
Our drive also included stops at some rest stops that offered the usual gas station fare...
(Live tarantulas and a very badass little boy.)
A bag of sliced up dragon fruit (probably my favorite snack) = $0.50
After sampling the local fare, we continued north to Siem Reap and woke up at 4:30 on Saturday morning to start our epic journey by watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Over the course of the next hour, I watched the sky melt from pitch black to midnight blue to royal blue to sun-filled...
(5 AM glamour shots in 90 degree weather are always cute.)
The rest of the day consisted of touring the 4 other temples that make up the Angkor Wat compound. The first two we visited were Bayon and Bapoun, which are unfinished playground-esque structures that are essentially endless mazes of hallways and atria.
King Louie's palace in The Jungle Book? I think so.
It was about 99 degrees and full humidity so...excuse the excessive sweat.
This begins the "Really Awesome Trees" section of this post...
This mossy, algae-filled pool used to be the bath for the king's harem.
Aside from the completely awe-inspiring ruins, the best part of Angkor Wat was the number of dragonflies that appeared out of nowhere and clouded the sky. Right before one of the torrential downpours that I've grown accustomed to being a staple of life in Southeast Asia, a swarm of about 60 dragonflies flew right in front of me.
Look really closely...all those tiny black dots are dragonflies guiding me on my adventure (ask my Mom for further clarification).
(It's really hard to capture 60 dragonflies on camera so...just pretend there are 58 more of them in this picture.)
After the dragonflies arrived, the rainstorm pushed us under a thatched roof hut conveniently located off the trail through one of the temples.
The huts sold neon rain ponchos...a very necessary purchase.
The hour-long rainstorm not only provided some much needed escape from the heat/humidity, but it also brought out the kids. Some of them took off all of their clothes and stood, barefoot and naked, in giant puddles with huge smiles plastered on their faces. Others took the opportunity presented by the poor drainage system to dive into the rapidly enlarging pools of rainwater.
They also try to sell the tourists everything from woven bracelets to bags of pineapple.
After a two hour lunch (the restaurant service here will be the focus of another post because...it is completely ridiculous), we headed to Ta Prom (aka the Tomb Raider temple). To say that this ruin is anything other than magically incredible would be depleting its awesomeness.
The pre-lunch rain collected in pools across the paths...wooden walkways and Indiana Jones jumps were utilized often.
The entire temple is covered in moss and giant tree roots grow up and over the stones.
The band of blind men who serenaded us on the walk to Angkor Wat (the main temple).
Did I mention that the temples are literally in the jungle?
This was probably the best tree I've ever seen. Peter Pan's lost boy world meets Indiana Jones is the only way to describe Angkor Wat.
At the main temple (Angkor Wat).
Close up, just in case you needed a Becca:Angkor Wat scale.
Jungle rain is unlike any other kind of precipitation...no way to describe it other than that it necessitates one of those aforementioned neon ponchos.
The last section of my pictures from the Angkor Wat trip are from the Beng Mealea site. The ticket to this temple reads "Welcome to Beng Mealea site, one the most mysterious temples of Siem Reap Province." (Grammar aside, that is the only way I could think of articulating the essence of Beng Mealea.)
Our tour guides through this most mysterious temple were barefooted children who held our hands and showed us the best ways to jump/slide/run/climb around the temple.
The sunset over the Cambodian rice paddies.
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