Friday, August 11, 2006

Safe in Siem Reap

Amy and I have arrived safely in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was a harrowing day-long bus ride that featured a malfunctioning radiator and some delay, but we are now installed in a nice hotel and are looking forward to exploring the temples tomorow.

Siem Reap is the ghost of the former Khmer capitol, from which the Angkor kings ruled all of southeast asia eight hundred years ago. Now it's just a little tourist town, full of guesthouses and restaurants and internet cafes. The actual Khmer capitol structures turned to dust centuries ago, as they were made solely of wood. Only the gods deserved to live in homes of stone or brick, and man, the gods lived well in this burg.

Even the smaller of the temples here dwarfs the town. Angkor Wat is the most famous, but there are dozens of others dotting the landscape in various stages of repair. I'll write more about the temples when I've had a chance to explore them firsthand.

A slight change in plans: turns out it's harder than I realized to get an Indian visa, so I'm going to cool my heels in Thailand for a week while I wait for their paperwork to process (I guess these folks learned beuaracracy from the British), so I won't land until the 23rd.

A true Phnom Penh post is coming soon, followed by temple photos.

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