Ankor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

I flew into Siem Reap from Phuket via Bangkok and arrive around 7 pm on March 8th. There were hordes of taxi drivers but I chose one and he's been my driver now for three days.

I'm staying at the Sydney Ankor Hotel @ $20/night...expensive by local standards. Beer is $1 and food is also cheap.

My first morning I was awakened by my driver at 5:30 am to take me to Ankor Wat for sunrise.
It was a bit of wait, I must admit, but when the sun finally rose, like a burning orb behind the temple, it was beautiful beyond description.

Next we moved on to the Bayon and its 200 coldly smiling faces cast in stone, shrouded by dense jungle.

Next we visited Ta Prom. Despite considerable restoration efforts on the other temples, Ta Prom is much the way it was discovered in the 1860's. It appeared to be swallowed by the jungle, caught in the vast embrace of a vast root system with towering trees overhead that cast eerie shadows. It really shows the awesome power of the jungle. This is the real adventure I came here for...

Over a few days I visited most of the temples and this afternoon, retreated to the cool of my air-con room after hours of climbing up and down hundred of well-worn, lichen-encrusted steps that each temple has.

The town of Siem Reap, as of this writing, is a quaint little town. But at least 15 new monster hotels are being built around the place and the town will brace itself for the mass tourism that's bound to come. I'm glad I got here before that happened.