Cambodia

One place I never thought I'd ever visit is the Kingdom of Cambodia. It was never even on my radar screen until we moved to China and I began to hear other expats talking about what an amazing place it was. Fortunately for us, my parents have a wanderlust and were planning a 22 day tour of southeast Asia which gave me the perfect opportunity to convince them spend a week in Shanghai and watch the kids so that Sev and I could get away on our own (first time in 3 years)! When deciding where to go, we wanted to hit some places that we otherwise couldn't visit with the kids in tow. We decided on Chiang Mai, Thailand and Cambodia (Chiang Mai is covered in a separate blog post). And so began our adventure in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The town is really nothing special- except for the several ancient temples which lie nearby. The temples were built over 1000 years ago and all now listed as world heritage sights. As with other ancient temples (egyptian pyramids, Manchu picchu), Cambodia's temples were built with no mortar or cement and were only held together by the perfect fit of each stone. The most famous temple complex is Angkor Wat, which is where we started our journey. Most of the temples were built either to honor a specific buddhist or hindu god, or as a final resting place for the king.

As we explored the various temples, I felt totally overwhelmed by their size, beauty, and the ingenuity it took to build them so long ago. Honestly, I would rank them right up their with the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City in Beijing. The funny thing is that when we told our friends back in the US that we were going to see Angkor Wat, not one person had ever heard of it. Crazy! By the way, the below pictures do not even come close to doing this place justice!

One of the many temples- look closely to see the giant faces carved into the stones.

A close up of one of the gods.

The citadel of women- built out of pink sandstone to honor a goddess.

One of the small temples in the Angkor Wat complex

Many of the temple walls were carved with these Apsara dancers or other stories about life during the time the temples were built (Sev liked this carving for obvious reasons).

A sign in front of one of the temples we visited- just 2 years ago we would not have been able to go there due to the land mines.

On day two in Cambodia, we took a boat tour of the flooded forest, Tongle Lake. This lake grows 20 times in size during the rainy season, flooding everything around it, yet providing a livelihood to the many local fisherman. It was on this trip that we really got to see how truly impoverished Cambodia is. Again, google Pol Pot if you want to understand why- he was a REALLY bad guy who totally screwed up the country and they are just now starting to get straightened out. I knew going into this trip that we were going to see some tough things- there are a lot of land mine victims from the civil wars (including young people), young children running around naked, and many kids from about age 7 were actually working- either tending to the family's cattle or trying to sell things to the tourists. It was really hard to see but everyone we met was very gracious and always thanking us for choosing to visit their country. Overall, it was an amazing trip and we would definitely recommend Cambodia to anyone with a sense of adventure!

A young boy tending the family cows.

Public transportation for anyone who is not a tourist- yikes.

3 children in a boat- alone- in the fishing village (and yes, the little kid in the back is naked).

Typical fishing huts on the lake.

Two small boys with huge knives- I swear they weren't much older than our kids! And there was not a parent in sight...

These kids had knives too which they apparently used to cut down firewood. Can you imagine American kids going out alone into the jungle to gather firewood?