Siem Reap... Tomb Raider! Angkor Wat and many more temples

This is why people from all over travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia....it looks fake doesn't it?This is Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. And this is just one of the many temples located here. Angkor Wast is also the image used on the Cambodia flag.

We definitely felt like Indiana Jones on one of his crusades. In actuality, we should have felt like Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) as her movie Tomb Raider was filmed here. It's easy to see why...

And you wondered why Angelina Jolie picked Cambodia to adopt her kid from? Now you know that she was here to film the movie Tomb Raider.

We arrived late and woke up to see the place we were staying. We stayed at a guesthouse that was run by a local Siem Reap family. It was nothing extravagant, but comfy and had 5 beds in two bedrooms all for $30/night. The girls thought it was fabulous to have their own room and own TV, which even had American cartoons.

The view from our room...

Angkor Wat is about 5 km from the city of Siem Reap. So we caught at tuk-tuk and were on our way.

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire which lasted from 801 AD - 1432. The empire extended well into present day Thailand, all the way down to our beloved beach city of Phuket!

You have to love the name Siem Reap, which means "Victory over Siam" (Siam, Siamese, being Thailand). But it was Siam (Thailand) who defeated the Khemer Empire in 1432, but somehow the name of the city still stuck.

Along the way we saw these crazies on their way to work. I can't believe that anybody would be brave enough to use a hand to wave!

Also on the way in... this sign reads - "Tourism: A Vital Force for Poverty Alleviation"Remember the sign in the previous blog post about not allowing child labor? Well it really made sense once we got to Angkor Wat... there were young kids everywhere selling souvenirs and food. There is just too much money for them not to sell things to tourist.

These kids have learned English and make more money selling souvenirs than their parents could ever earn in their regular jobs. So we ended up with a bunch a stuff we didn't need. But once these kids put "business" aside they became kids again and had fun playing with our girls.Chinese tourists were everywhere on our Southeast Asia trip. Here is Adayla with a new little Chinese friend. Adayla is just so fun to watch when she speaks Chinese...

Some Angkor Wat pictures...


It amazed us that hardly anything was roped off / restricted. We pretty much could wander wherever we wanted... again, it almost made us feel like Indiana Jones exploring the ruins. We just wonder how much damage to the temples they can tolerate before they start restricting areas.

Bayon Temple

This next temple site is called Bayon Temple. It's hard to say which one in our favorite, but it's easy to say that the three we include here are our top three favorites! The three are all so amazing, and so unique.

Here's Morgan and the girls outside of the temple. Look closely at the stones of the temple...

Look closely and you'll see the king's face... 216 faces on the temple grounds actually. At any point on the temple grounds you can see at least 8 faces. This place is right out of a movie...
The girls doing their Lara Croft crossed with Dora the Explorer impersonation...
Burning incense for good luck and blessing...

If there is any way that Tally could fall down, she found it. Here she cried out that her shoe was stuck... it was really stuck. After this day of falling down, despite temperatures over 90 degrees in February, we had to put her in full-length jeans to keep her legs from getting any more scraped up.

There were elephant rides available right outside this temple. Adayla wanted to go for an elephant ride, but got so scared when one walked over to her that she climbed up Morgan's leg...

When we needed a drink between temples, we just had our tuk tuk driver stop for some fresh coconuts...

When the tuk-tuk motorcycle got "thirsty" he stopped for gas... here you buy your gas by the half-liter or liter, real safe, right?

Lunch break... nothing like using silverware that's been sitting in water. We didn't ask when the last time was that they cleaned this glass or changed the water in it...

The food in Cambodia is definitely not as good as in Thailand, despite having similar names. The cashew shrimp dish here was simply cashews and shrimp put together... no other flavorings, not like Thailand.

Here Morgan was disappointed her beef with green peppers and onions dish. We were expecting green bell peppers, not peppercorn that was green...

Ta Prohm

Unlike other temples here that have been restored/maintained to some extent, the decision was made to keep Ta Prohm largely as it was discovered, with the jungle overtaking the various buildings of the temple site.

This area was all cleared off when the temple was used back in the day, but this is only the beginning of the trees...

and cows...

But check out these trees!

These trees growing on top of the temple buildings have to be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen...

More trees...

Just amazingly powerful, and beautiful...

If you come to Siem Reap, Cambodia definitely allow for two full days, perhaps even three. If you're really into it you can stay longer but 2-3 full days of temple exploring was just right for us.