Angkor Thom the walled city with multiple temples and Angkor Wat, the eighth wonder of the world; at least in the eyes of the Cambodian people were now in our sights. And since more than 2 million people come to visit a year, they must not be wrong! Angkor Wat is just one temple in the Angkor Complex but it is the most famous and one of the most well preserved.

It was good to see Rich back on the bike today, although I am not so sure who was more nervous, he or I. At first he was in front of me and then he moved to behind me and that was better because I wasn’t always looking out for huge holes in the ground that would swallow him up. He wasn’t on his bike for more than three minutes when I saw him reach into his jersey pocket to take out his camera. You would think that he learned but my man, I love him so, is not always a quick study. He’s such a risk taker!

We left the hotel around nine to get into queue for tickets into the Angkor complex. It was a real challenge to insert ourselves into the morning traffic. Kind of gets your heart rate up and ready for the day! At the ticket booth for the temples, we have to have our picture taken and a pass made up. Luckily for me, Watson kept them all because I know it would have been the first thing I lost. Back on the bikes we travelled a lovely tree lined road towards the Angkor City.

Pictures, pictures everywhere I looked. Once again I find myself thinking that I cannot take enough pictures to describe the beauty of what we are seeing. Our guides are most patient with us as we stop for pictures at the gates, pictures by the lakes, pictures of everything. I want to take it all in because I fear I might never be back. Just inside the gates of Angkor I not only got to see elephants but monkeys to boot! Watson says he doesn’t like the elephants because they are worked too hard and too long. He said you can see the tears in their eyes. Well, just say that and I want to sign up for “Save the Elephant” organization! The monkeys saved the day with their silly antics with the tourists. One has to be careful because they will take stuff from your bag if you are not looking and then run off into the jungle. Several people had bananas and all the monkeys were enjoying the morning treat. Watson said this would be the only place we would see the monkeys because that is where most the tourist would stop to feed them. Those Angkor monkeys have us well trained!

Today was only a little riding and a lot of walking. First we visited the Angkor Thom complex, which is the biggest of all the Wats of Angkor but first you had to make it through the throngs of children trying to sell you something: post cards, books, t-shirts, scarves, wood figures of Angkor and the Buddha. It was rather annoying for the most part and heart breaking, too. Watson, whose name is really Wat Tha (silent “H”), says it is not good to buy from them because almost everything is very low quality and the money is going to someone else and they get a few cents for a days work. It is very hard to turn away from their little faces begging you to buy something from them.

Back to the temples. Built by Kings with slave labor, most of the Wats were for built as burial tombs. Some of them housed as many as 20,000 people. There has been a great deal of restoration work done in the early part of the 20th century by the French. Because of the French, the Angkor complex has been revived as a destination for tourist. Most of the temples had been left to let mother nature takes its course but the French were able to cut away the jungle and rebuild a lot of the Wats back to their glory. They have also been able to translate some of the Sanskrit and understand what life was like when the Angkor temples were being built. When leaving the temple our guide asked a group of three young monks if they would pose for a picture with Laura and Janie. Duly warned not to touch the monks, we had a good photo session and then a nice conversation with one of the monks. We made a small donation to them and were off to our next temple. Again Richard added that we should start a new rock group, Laura, Janie and the Three Monks!

After visiting several temples in the Angkor Thom complex, where an estimated 1,000,000 people lived in it’s hey day, we rode our bikes to the Angkor Wat temple. Needless to say there aren’t enough words in the English language to describe it. Check out todays photos for just a small sample of what there is too see. After exploring Angkor Wat we were off the visit the temple where “Laura Croft - Tomb Raider” was filmed. It was not as wildly overgrown as I had expected but still spectacular. The huge trees growing out of the temple are so wild they don’t even look real. Oh so many photo ops!

After this temple we had one more short ride to Sunset Hill where we climbed up a 180 meter hill and then up some very steep steps in the temple to watch the sunset. So, so many people, we opted to go down before the sunset and head back into Siem Reap for a well deserved dinner and a visit to the night market. On the way down, just a few sort meters from the van, I tripped and fell to my knees. I am not so sure what hurt more, my scuffed knee or my total embarrassment. Several people came to my rescue and now I was very dirty. This is becoming the Kuhlman Death March. No one is going to ride with us again! Between Rich’s accident, my turbulent stomach and now my knee, we are a real treat to be around!

We ate dinner at a nice restaurant called Angkor Palm. The owner had a restaurant for several years in Paris and then decided to come back home to Siem Reap to open up a restaurant in the heart of the tourist district. It was wonderful food, as much as I could eat. This bug in my stomach is beginning to really irritate me. The night market was super crowded and filled with as much cheap souvenirs as you could imagine. If I was feeling better I could have enjoyed the experience more.

Back to the hotel in a fun little tuk-tuk. Tomorrow we visit two more temple sights via bicycle. Sleep for me now!

Link to today’s photos

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