Cambodia!

So...better late than never...right?

This summer, my darling younger sis, M, left her family for 2 weeks to come see me (well, it was really adventure she was looking for) and help move me back to the States.

We spent 3 not-whole days in Cambodia, mostly near Angkor Wat.  Amazing place.  The area, that is.  Angkor Wat, itself, was cool, but not the most exciting temple.

This is Angkor Wat.
It looks very awesome, and really it is.
But compared to the other temples, it is incredibly pristine,
almost Hollywood-like with it's manicured everything,
and loaded with tourists

The highest level of Angkor Wat is regulated.
Prego-me was not allowed to go,
so I stayed on the next level down and entertained myself by taking pictures...

...of monks...
...and the incredibly steep staircase...

...and this way too cute toddler that was running all over.

We saw 3 (?) other temples--this was one of our favorites
Angkor Thom
M is standing on the bridge leading across the moat toward the temple grounds.
On the left side are the Heavenly gods, playing tug-of-war with the gods from Hell on the right side.

This is one of the entrances to the grounds for Angkor Thom.
This gate was actually used in the movie Tomb Raider,
as are other parts of other temple grounds around Angkor Wat.

The grounds of Angkor Thom are still mostly rubble.
There is construction everywhere to rebuild,
kind of like at Pompeii.
Angkor Thom is incredibly huge, as it was actually a capital city for a time, with a temple at the center.
We're still doing our homework on Angkor Wat, as we did not prep at all for this tour.
(Angkor Wat is the name of the area, not just the temple.)

Casting idols of their gods were incredibly important.
4-sided tiers like this are everywhere (4 cardinal directions).
Each temple was assigned a god, either Buddhist or Hindu.
This temple, in Angkor Thom, called Bayon, was Buddhist,
however, those faces are not of Buddha.
If I remember right, they don't actually know whose face that is.

A close-up shot of one of the faces.

A Cambodian spider.
Ew.
Our tour guide was absolutely amazing!
As no one else signed up for our tour, we ended up with a personal guide at a group price.
:-)
He took us to places around the temple that most tourists don't get to go on normal tours.
We found this spider up on the grassy/wooded top of a wall that we walked on between two of the entrances at Angkor Thom.

There are wayyyy more pictures that I will have to score from M.  My camera melted while taking pictures of that really steep staircase at Angkor Wat...

I will get those up here later this week.