Angkor Wat - Home Hosted Lunch- Ta Prohm

Bus & walking tour of Angkor Wat National Park covering 250 square miles. It’s a UNESCO heritage site. Highlights include temples & monuments built between AD 800-1200 motivated by Hindu & Buddhist beliefs. Angkor Wat means city temple. This large pyramid temple was built between 1113 & 1150 & is surrounded by a moat 570 feet wide & 5 miles long. Angkor Wat covers 500 acres. We spent 3 hours walking around this impressive site. 1000 year old stone carvings are magnificent & remarkably well preserved. Some restoration was done by the French in the 1930s & 40s using more modern technology but now they try to keep to the old materials & techniques as much as possible. We enjoyed a home-hosted lunch & learned about Cambodian life Khmer style. The 3 generational family were subsistence farmers, although the mother spoke English because she sold cheap clothes to tourists at Angkor Wat. In fact Kim remembers her trying to sell her a scarf & she just ignored her... In the pm we visited the Ta Prohm temple. This temple was originally built as a Buddhist temple, then changed to Hinduism. The Hindus destroyed 300 Buddhist statues. Lots of spung trees. They are very soft trees. About 60% of the temple has deteriorated from so much vegetation & heavy rainfall. The trees growing on top of the walls with roots spreading down made for some great photo ops. The pano setting on our I-Phones is great for these pics. Laura Croft Tomb Raider had scenes shot here. Just Google it! Very cheap food & drinks here. Many restaurants offer 50 cent drafts & its actually good beer. We had beer at happy hour at the hotel yesterday. Regular price was $1.69 US - happy hour was half off!Read more