Today I visited the world famous Angkor Wat site, it is so iconic that the building behind me features on the Cambodian flag! We got up super early (4:30am) to go and see the sunrise and then spent about 5hrs wandering around this and surrounding sites.
Angkor translates to 'Capital City' and Wat means 'Temple' meaning that this construction was the main religious building in the country when King Suryavarman II ordered it to be built around 800 years ago and it stands out because of it's 65m high towers that were built to look like lotus flowers.
There were so many buildings and temples to explore, many were still being rescued from the jungle that had swallowed them up after centuries of neglect (At Ta Phrom there are still many huge trees with roots as thick as tree trunks wrapped around the carved rocks) and at Angkor Thom there are massive faces carved in stone and a long construction called 'The Terrace of the Elephants' where huge images of elephants are carved into the walls and columns are made to look like trunks. It was fascinating to look around the ruins of a culture I know so little about and I definitely want to learn more about the Khmer.
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