Angkor Wat What??

I always worry about traveling to a new place, but once I get there I find that I'm usually able to adapt pretty quickly.  I've been in Phnom Penh now for about a week and a half and while I still have a lot to figure out, I'm feeling pretty comfortable here.  The weather is pretty much just like New Orleans, just with a bit less rain.  You can get anywhere on a tuk tuk for usually a max of $5 and the beer averages in price from $0.50 and $2.00.  So, all in all, not a bad place to be.

The research is having a big of a slow start, so my colleague and I took advantage of the lull to go visit Angkor Wat.  If you don't know what Angkor Wat is, which I didn't, let Wikipedia tell you all about it.  In short, it's a massive collection of Hindu temples, some of which were built as early as the 700s.  Interestingly enough, it was just discovered that there are even more temples that haven't been unearthed yet.

So, we hopped on a bus on Wednesday and headed to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat.  When I say that this place is massive, I'm really not joking around.  The traditional day hike starts at sunrise, so you leave your hotel at 4:30 am and spend nearly 12 hours exploring temples.  For those of you who know me, I'm usually only awake at 4:30 am if I haven't been to bed yet, so that early start was not exactly my favorite.  Seeing the sun rise over Angkor Wat was definitely worth it though.

In the first day, we explored about six temples throughout the day.  Just to give you a sense of how much ground that is, we walked 11.5 miles and climbed 40 flights of stairs.  The most amazing thing was probably how each of the temples was really unique in style.  I certainly expected everything to be more or less the same and thought I would get bored quickly, but it was fascinating to see all the variation.  The last temple we saw was the one that was used in Tomb Raider and was really cool to see as it had trees and vines all over and it was easy to feel like you were really exploring.

The second day, we explored more temples than I can count, but we got to have an 8 am start so I was happy about that.  By the end of the day, I did start to get templed out, but I think it was worth a second day to see a bit more.

The highlight of the temples for me happened on the first day.  We had walked through the largest temple and I was sitting on a ledge resting a little bit when a monkey walked by, not more than a few feet away.  I could barely contain my excitement.  My colleague thought I was being ridiculous, but I maintain that it was AWESOME.

In the evenings, we went out on Siem Reap's aptly named "Pub Street."  It was really lively, filled with bars, restaurants, street vendors, and of course, tourists.  It felt oddly like Bourbon Street in Cambodia.

I'm back in Phnom Penh now catching up on work and getting ready to start the week.  I'm hoping that we'll get out to the field within the next few days to start preparing to start interviews for our research.  I think we'll be staying around Phnom Penh for the next week or two, but that just gives me more time to explore around here!