Siem Reap in the springtime…

Our time in Cambodia was completely life-changing…I counted myself lucky the day the decision was made to pack up our lives in NYC and move to the other end of the world because I knew it meant the chance to see places like this…places I once thought I’d be kidding myself to hope to visit back when the most exotic stamp in my passport was from a cruise to Jamaica with my family in my teens.

I had a few ideas what seeing the temples of Siem Reap would be like, but I had no idea the mystique would hit me so hard. I was surrounded by other amazed visitors at most of the places we went, but what made it all seem so unique was the strange feeling that the people who live there have very recently been made aware of the complete greatness (and tourism dollar potential) of the temples they co-exist with. We heard stories about the French discovering new temples in the area as recently as 1914…ones completely overgrown but no more then 30 miles from the center of town…I just got the sense that these places would have been left to rot unless some savvy Archeologist found, restored and publicized them.

We spent our first day visiting Angkor Wat and Banteay Srey and Phnom Bakheng…here are a few images from those…more to come!

xhdlk

 

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