Angkor Wat Temples--Day 1

Our tour guide picked us up early and we headed out for a day of sight seeing and touring. This day we conquored the most famous Angkor Wat temples. . . but they were also the most crowded temples. It was amazing to be actually walking around these famous ruins that we had seen so often in pictures. Angkor Wat is one of the ancient man-made wonders of the world and when you see it in person, there is no question why. The temples were originally Hindu temples built to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma anywhere from 1200 to 900 years ago.

As we approached the first temple that morning, a slew of monkeys came running out of the jungle and started surrounding us. At first the kids were thrilled to see monkeys in the wild. It's not like that happens every day in our lives. However, what was so cute and fun took a turn for the worse. I had read online that the monkeys could be quite aggressive, so before leaving on vacation I warned the children not to try to catch the monkeys or the monkeys might rip the kids' faces off. It became a joke for the first half of the trip.

As we were all standing around laughing at the monkeys, one suddenly swung off a vine and stole Gwynyth's water bottle out of her hand. He turned it over and over trying to figure out how to open it. He bit the bottom of the bottle and water started leaking out, so he dropped it, jumped up on top of it and squirted him in the rear end, which scared him to death and he took off running. We laughed hysterically, until unexpectedly another monkey ran up and tried to climb up Giselle into her pocket on her dress. She started screaming and crying, "It's biting me." The other kids shooed that monkey away and I scooped her up into my arms, just as another monkey ran up and started swinging on Chloe's pink sundress. Then Chloe started crying and yelling, "It's attacking me, save me!" Apparently, the monkeys had some sharp claws and as they climbed up the girls, the girls got scratched, but they thought they were being mauled to death. I guess I scared them with my whole shpeal about monkeys ripping faces off, because Giselle and Chloe were certain their death had come. They were fine in the end, but we learned a very valuable lesson: Monkeys are NOT cute and cuddly.

Angkor Wat is the largest and most famous temple of the 320 temples that surround Siem Reap. It was built by the indiginous people, known as the Khmer people. (You've probably heard of the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields in the 1970s--I'll talk about that a little more later.)

Traditional costumes of Cambodian performers.

Our second stop was the Bayon Temple and it was AWESOME! (and very crowded.) This one has many towers around the complex and each tower has a face facing the four major directions (N, E, S, W). It is amazing how well preserved this place is. A lot of restoration has been done on the major temples, but it still breathtaking to see how this place must have looked 1000 years ago.

For lunch we went for more Cambodian food. It was good and interesting. Soups are always questionable because you can't tell what exactly you're eating. Diamond asked to eat the fish eyeballs every time we were served a whole fish baked in sea salt.

After lunch we went to Ta Prom temple complex. Here they have allowed the ancient trees to remain on the ruins to show people how the ruins look when they were first discovered in the late 1800s. One of the kids said, it looked like the trees were candle wax that had melted over the stones.

We went to one last small temple for the queen and it was cool, but we were ready to be done with temples for the day!

So after a day of temple exploring we went to the downtown market with souvenirs and it was super fun. I taught the children how to barter like pros. We got some excellent deals on things and had a great time looking at all of the different things they were selling.

This is a picture of phu, Vietnamese noodle soup. My family fell in love with this dish and ate it for almost every lunch and dinner after this night. For dinner we ate at a giant buffet with traditional Cambodian food. Diamond loves himself an all-you-can eat buffet and he just about cleaned the place out!

At the buffet, there was a stage and we watched a performance of traditional Khmer music and dancing. Loved this!! But, the kids were wiped out and falling asleep on the table, so we had to leave a little early and call it a night.