Angor Wat is beautiful!
Ready to go at 5:30 AM. It's actually pretty cool out and it's so early that the shops are just now cooking breakfast for the locals and tourist. We all hit the taxi and take a good 20 minutes drive out to all the temples. Ankgor Wat is the first large land mark we visit. For some reason it looked much smaller to me from what I did see in pictures. Then I realized... I was only walking through the stone gate way to get to the actual temple. When I finally walked under that on to another stone pathway, I saw all it's glory and the beautiful ponds on each side and the palm trees accenting the building nicely. Workers were scattered throughout the site restoring some of the reliefs and larger parts of the building that have worn away. (this made me think of Brandon a lot ). This also made me think that some of my Art History classes really paid off despite how boring they were. (Mostly just for it's basic terminology to recognize certain historical artifacts.)
Seriously, climbing these extremely steep stairs to some of monuments reaching a good few stories up is tiring (Some of those monuments had monuments within' those monuments and those were filled with more reliefs and statues!). Parading through rock gardens, long pathways, and did I mention there were about 10 more smaller temples that we checked out? I didn't even realize there were more! Another temple that particular stood out to me was called Bayon, (HUGE smiling buddha faces). It was absolutely fascinating seeing some of the wear and tear of these huge stone temples and & the faces etched into them. It really doesn't compare to seeing just pieces of it in a museum when you got the whole she-bang in front of you.
Even the surroundings of these temples were fun to take in. Monkeys were hanging out every where walking freely and I even saw a few elephants lead around by people as well as giving rides to whoever wanted to shell out cash. I tried to drink some pond water (yes they sell it) but my stomach was already upset. The water was from a huge stone swimming pool by Bayon, apparently the king use to bathe there in his down time. Other things I took notice were huge, big black bee's nest and large trees with roots big enough to make a small home out of near these temples.
I have a whole new appreciation for history. I never really liked it or was good at remembering important events. It turns out that I was just learning about boring shit this whole time and never gave a rats ass. Today was a new-age hippie and art history teachers orgasm. (especially for those interested in the Buddhist and Hindu religions & practices), either way just seeing it all is worth learning about it.
I want to type more.. but I'm sleepy. Goodnight.
