Angkor Wat is the worlds largest religious monument. It was built in the 12th century and scholars still speculate about it's demise. We were there in the peak of the off-season. This means we largely had the temples to ourselves but it also meant we had to deal with searing heat. Spending the day wandering around temples in 40C+ heat really takes it out of you. I was surprised how little I knew about Angkor Wat before I came here. This was the seat of one of the greatest empires that ever ruled the earth and I had never even heard of it until I started researching P2P. Here are temples whose grandeur, if not height, can be compared to the pyramids of Egypt and South America and yet I knew so little about them.

Please excuse the extra-ordinary number of photos but I have literally hundreds of them and most are very good (for me anyway). I wished I have taken more time to learn about the place, it's origins and the significance of the temples before I arrived.

These two images are borrowed courtesy of wikipedia as they give you an idea of the larger picture which cannot be seen from the ground with photos. You have a central temple which is shown in the model on the left and the aerial shot on the right shows the moat that surrounds it. This is Angkor Wot, which is the largest and best preserved temple around but there are literally hundreds of temples, mostly outside the moat. Many are not connected by much of a path and you have to wander through the scrub to get to them and then you have the whole temple all to yourself. With a little imagination you could almost be an archaeologist ;)

Over the centuries the jungle has moved back in and the roots of trees have taken there toll on the stone temples. This has created some wonderful images.

There are many bas reliefs in the deeper parts of the temples, away from the invading forests. Common themes are depictions of battles and sculptures of nymphs with very un-asian proportions. Each one is different and the hairstyles are quite famous.

The intrepid archaeologists! Or so we felt in amongst the mostly abandoned temples and searing heat. If you ever do make it to Angkor be sure to get around by bicycle. Even in the heat it was easily the best way to get around. The silence, peace and the freedom of the bicycle was fantastic. Other people took the evil tuk-tuks but they just missed out. Get a ladies bike too, the basket is indispensable. Well that's a lot of photos but it's only a tiny fraction of what I took. I hope you enjoyed them.