Out and About: January 2010

So! at last i can tell about cambodia. i needed to leave thailand for a visa extension and decided to make it worth my while by visiting Angkor Wat in cambodia. you might want to wikipedia the place for a thorough over view if you're not at all familiar.

anyway, i was only there a few days, the first was a tuk tuk tour, and on the second i rented a bike. buses from bangkok to the town closes to angkor cost about 10 bucks and took about 6 hours. cambodia is definitely much more poor than thailand. and more corrupt also, as i found out at the border when the police were hassling me for money (to which i stubbornly argued for about 20 minutes until they yet me pass without paying.) there were a lot more beggars but the people were just as nice and helpful.

this whole place was a huge city with hospitals, schools, etc. its just that the only structures built with materials that would last were the religious buildings. the rest disappeared over time...

my guest house. 5 us dollars. they love the dollar there. their own currency is very inflated, its 4,000 riels to the dollar. so big stuff is done with dollars and change is given in riels

all man made water works diverted from a nearby river

day long tuk tuk tour to the far off temples. 15 bucks

the face of shiva. the civilization went back and fourth between hunduism and buddhism, both brought over from india. these being of course mixed with local religious traditions...

very intricate carvings everywhere

no idea

the rough stones were used for the outer walls

ant tunnel

steep

there were a lot of rice fields everywhere

i took a walk a ways off the trails and was still discovering stones

this bug is insanely noisy

a ton of these guys lining a lot of the entrances

most without heads

it looks a bit unstable but its lasted this long...

there were a lot of these huuuuge trees that were positioned on top of the buildings with its roots extending sometimes more than 15 feet down to the ground. i dont know how it works.