This past weekend Anna, Hamza and I went to Siem Reap to see all the temples. After an 8+ hour bus ride in which Anna, Hamza and I spent alternating between reading like that nerds that we are and freaking out about our future, law school, and life in general while everyone else our age was care free and napping like normal backpackers we arrived in Siem Reap at 1am. (Well I also napped because Im a good sleeper.)
Friday morning we hired a tuk tuk through our guest house and were off. Of course we started at Angkor Wat, the most famous temple in Cambodia and the one that is on the flag. Its hard to describe any of the temples with just words because the intricacy of every wall and ceiling is so insane. Pictures do not even begin to show their beauty but hopefully you can get an idea.
On our way to the next temple
Bayon: aka the temple with all the faces. This temple, while maintained decently, it is more real. there are crumbling walls, piles of stones that once made up the walls and ceilings of the temple. There are dark halls and puddles everywhere. On the top room of the temple where there is still a altar there were two women worshiping. When we approached they waved us in, handed us each a stick of incense, instructed us to bow 3 times then stick it in the altar. We all complied and one by one allowed on of the women to tie blue and red colored bands around our wrist while reciting a prayer of sorts. While Im not buddhist and don't really know much about the religion it was a really cool experience.
xoxo