Angkor Wat

The outer wall of Angkor Wat

One of the two libraries at Angkor Wat

The Hindu temple inside Angkor Wat

When nature takes over

It takes no prisoners

Bayon

Buddha heads

The reason I ventured into Cambodia and didn't just do a quick visa run to the border was to visit Angkor Wat. It is the one place that everyone I had spoken to on my travels that had visited here agreed was somewhere not to be missed. So with motorbike chauffeur booked for the day I was ready to explore. Now I have visited both Caracol in Belize and Tikal in Guatemala so I wasn't sure if Angkor Wat was going to live up to all the hype and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The fact that you need transport for the day, you can hire bicycles if you are feeling really energetic, kind of suggested that the area was going to be large, but wow! Tree lined streets, moats 15km x 13km, gates big enough to keep the most determined of pheasants out (!), and intricacies of bas reliefs that was pretty spectacular, not to mention the temples, the Buddha heads and the palaces. The shear size and area of the place is pretty amazing. The buidlings are in varying states of repair with scaffolding and workmen evident in some areas and the force of nature taking over in others. Some of the temples are Hindu and others are Buddhist. If you want to see all the temples and go into great details you can buy a weeks pass to the area but for me, in the heat, one day was plenty to see the major sights and get a good idea about the place. If anyone plans to visit don't forget to practice your most endearing smile and "no thank you" phrase before you arrive as you will have to say it many times to all the people and children trying to sell you things throughout the day - from water, to food, to postcards to guidebooks. Learning to say it in Cambodian doesn't help either, I think it just encourages them more.