Pete and Nick and I left the islands last week, and after a brief layover in Bangkok we took off for Cambodia. Crossing the border was like stepping back in time, it made me realize how modern Thailand is compared to its southeast Asian neighbors. We stayed in Siem Reap, a town that has grown rapidly in the last fifteen years due its proximity to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat has been on the map for a long time, but because of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge Regime, the ruins were basically closed down to the rest of the world until the mid 1990s. Siem Reap is growing rapidly along with its influx in tourism, but the juxtaposition between the old Cambodia and the new wave of foreign visitors is still very apparent.
Angkor Wat was immaculate, and it looked as though there had been a lot of time and energy put into its preservation. I really liked all of the sandstone carvings, there were tons of them, huge murals that spanned entire corridors, all with extreme attention to detail. It was amazing. There's not really that much I can say about a place like this, it's a lot to take in, and you really just have to experience it for yourself...
