The Temples

We spent an entire day climbing all over the temples which include the famous Angkor Wat.  You can read more about it here.

We started at the Angkor Thom South Gate which was cool with lots of moss.  The stone structures were enormous.

Trees grow right out of the stones.

Cambodia has been ruled by many different ethnic groups not native to Cambodia and there has been looting of precious gems as well as wanton destruction of their temples.

A lot of these salvage projects are piecing together stone pieces to rebuild an approximation of what the original structures were like.

Currently, there are quite a few countries helping fund renovation and reconstruction.

We also stopped by Bayon where there were all these faces facing every direction.

I was also able to get a photo nose to nose with one of the faces.

We also walked the Elephant Terrace where the King would sit to watch elephants battle.

We also saw Ta Prohm where the Lara Croft movie was filmed.

Inside there were these corner steeples which were lined with diamonds as big as your hand (you can see all the indentations where they were seated), however, they were all taken during the looting.

The jewel of the temples is Angkor Wat which was massive.  There are areas that are not safe to walk, but we were able to climb all the way to the top and see the entire grounds.

I also saw some dogs here as well.