Siem Reap, Cambodia (part 3)

We spent one of our mornings in Siem Reap exploring the ruins of Ta Prohm Temple. It was possibly one of the most amazing sites I've ever seen. Our car dropped us off at the crumbling stone gateway, beyond which was a long gravel pathway through the forest.

As you can see, at this early hour, we basically had the place to ourselves.

Siem Reap, Cambodia (part 2)

Tourists flock to Angkor Wat by the the thousands, and it is a glorious and impressive sight, of course. But for me, the real magic of Siem Reap lies in many of the other sites. There is nothing quite like the feeling of having a thousand-year-old ruin nearly to yourself, early in the morning. There is no incessant chatter of other tourists and their guides, no crowds to navigate past, no other people appearing in your photographs, just massive stones rising from the jungle that has been slowly reclaiming them for a thousand years, their intricate carvings worn by time but still astonishingly stark and beautiful. The heat and humidity of the day is not yet oppressive, just on the edge of stifling, and you can close your eyes and imagine what these temples might have looked like when they were first built, when they rose out of the jungle as a sign of power and wealth.

This is Angkor Thom, the ancient Khmer city.

Siem Reap, Cambodia (part 1)

We've traveled a lot in the last two decades, and I can honestly say that there have been very few places that truly surprised me, that exceeded my expectations in almost every way. Siem Reap, Cambodia was one of those places. 

When I was a child in the 1970s and 1980s, I only knew of Cambodia as a place where refugees came from. The Khmer Rouge and the killing fields dominated my ideas about the place, and though I knew there were amazing temples and ruins to be seen, it was difficult to get past my preconceptions.  Add to that that we'd read we were going to be there at the absolute hottest time of the year (one guidebook described the heat as "hellish"), and I wasn't sure I was really going to enjoy our time there.

But from the moment we landed at the lovely airport in Siem Reap, everything about the city was picturesque and charming. It was hot, yes, but the air-conditioned hotel van was waiting for us (with cans of cold beer) to whisk us off to the Soujourn Hotel, a lovely little boutique hotel just outside the city.