Steven Raucher's World Tour

2001-07-26 in Siam Reap, Cambodia
Angkor Wat - Ruination!

Everything you have read about it is true. An awe-inspiring place. Most folks spend a bit of time her, picnicking and sketching etc etc, but I was suffering from temple burnout having been all through the Subcontinent and S.E. Asia I need a holiday!

We quickly made a plan of attack. Instead of bumbling our way across these hundreds of ruins we would hire a certified guide and see all the important stuff in a day. At 5 am the next morning our alarm woke us in time to see the sun rise at Angkor and then breeze through the other monuments and ruins.

I think my guide was slightly unnerved by my having told him not to give me too much information, does it really matter who carved this bas relief or that one? I think not. Defnitely not at 6 am in the morning! For most people it is the same. The jungle temple is the highlight, trees overgrown everywhere, you get a real Indiana Jones feel for the place (ps Tomb Raider was filmed here). So after a mere 5 hours we had finished the entire site with more inside info from our guide than I could bear! Onwards and upwards, heave-ho! Tomorrow Bangkok!

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drive-throughs Cambodia style - I'll have a Big Mac and Coke please...

Angkor Wat at sunrise, looks a lot better than I did!

overgrown ruins, the stuff adventures are supposed to be made of - motorbikes anyone?

finally someone with a bigger head...

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