Angkor Wat

Today we see Angkor Wat! We spent three hours at the site this morning. I'm at a loss for words to describe it. The engineering was spectacular, the art work superb. There are three cloisters, outer, middle, and inner. Six libraries, also outer, middle, and inner. There is too much to describe and there are too many photos to post.

In the afternoon we went back to visit Angkor Thom, which is the larger, palace complex a bit north of Angkor Wat. We visited Bai-on, the king's temple, with the many carved faces looking in the four cardinal directions. Then we went on to the king's viewing stand for games of "elephant polo," except that in this polo game, a wild animal was substituted for the ball, and temples to the 12 signs of the Zodiac surrounded the playing field. We also visited the "Tomb Raider" temple that has been largely taken over by trees. It had also been largely taken over by a large group of Japanese shutterbugs.

 

We finished the afternoon back at the moat surrounding Angkor Wat. As we gazed at the temple, the sun setting behind us, we drank a toast of "Strong Man" rice wine to the Ancient Kingdoms trip, and also partook of peanuts, sticky rice, cobra jerky, frog legs, and water buffalo jerky. A stray female dog, who'd obviously had had a hard life, came begging. A little boy about 4-5 years old, who'd also obviously had a hard life, also came begging. That was even more pathetic. With the rice wine (which was terrible -- but I had seconds anyway) we toasted the end of the tour.

In the evening, we were invited to a Hindu wedding which involved the cousin of our local guide. The wedding itself was over and done, we were only going to the reception. It had many elements of an American wedding (women dressed to the nines, loud DJ, people giving over-long speeches, etc.) but in the bedlam of nearly 800 guests (!) nobody was much paying attention. Cans of beer were delivered to the table faster than we could drink them. Platters of food came regularly. The bride and groom came to our table and we got photos taken with them, etc.

 

The bride and groom are expected to change clothes and wear seven different outfits over the course of the event -- one color for each day of the week. Also, the greater number of guests the greater the blessing for prosperity to the couple, that's why even tourists were invited. We were passed an envelope and asked to put in $10-$15 per person as a wedding gift. It was worth every bit of that for the food and drink. We could have stayed longer, but our tour director put us aboard a tuk-tuk back to the hotel after about and hour and a half.