Do you know what Angkor Wat is? Of course you do. And do you know exactly where it is? Hmm, that's a little tougher. Angkor Wat is an ancient temple area in central Cambodia, north of the Tonle Sap Lake and river. Before I went, I didn't even know that the Tonle Sap existed, but it is quite interesting. The Tonle Sap ("Great Lake" in the Khmer language) is a huge lake in central Cambodia that dominates a map of the country. Ordinarily, it flows south into the sea, but in the rainy season, the swollen Mekong River is so powerful that it actually forces the Tonle Sap River to flow backwards into the Lake. Of course this dramatically increases the size of the lake, although it never gets very deep. Therefore, which way it flows and how large it is will depend on what time of the year you go. Here is a picture of it as it looked from prop plane that I flew into Cambodia on.

Foreigners need a visa to enter Cambodia, so you should remember to bring a passport picture of yourself and US$20 in cash to save you some headaches. If you plan on taking a little trip into Vietnam while you're there, bring an extra picture since the visas are single-entry and you'll need another one to get back into Cambodia. The visas for Cambodia and Vietnam are not stamps, but full-page stickers which took up three pages of my passport. If you're a seasoned traveler without many pages left, watch out! When you exit the airport at Siem Reap, there's a money changing booth to your right. I hate feeling like my hands are tied because I don't have enough of the local currency so I just decided to change a good amount of money right there on the spot. This was a big mistake that I don't recommend you make. Although the national currency of Cambodia is the riel, the de facto currency is the dollar, and you'll only shoot yourself in the foot by having too much riel in your pocket. Although I changed money at the airport at about 3800 riel to the dollar, all prices in Cambodia are quoted in dollars. Then when you say "I only have riel," they'll figure the price at 4000 to the dollar, so you'll be losing a cool 5% of your hard-earned right away. And if you had to pay a commission to get your greenbacks in the first place, as I did, yikes. I don't recommend that you change no money into riel at all, however, for the simple fact that there are no coins in Cambodia whatsoever - only folding money! The "pennies" are small-denomination riel bills. If the only thing you have in your pocket is dollars, then you won't be able to spend anything less than a dollar, although they can give you change in riel. No, on second thought, just take dollars with plenty of ones and fives and you'll be fine. Skip the money changing altogether.

The walls of the temples of Angkor are covered with thousands of bas-reliefs like these.

I'm not a great history buff, so I basically a visit temples looking for nice camera angles and beautiful shots. I can't tell you the entire history of Angkor Wat - for that you'll need a book and/or guide. Prior to arriving I had seen plenty of pictures of Angkor Wat itself, but what I hadn't realized was that Angkor Wat was just the crown and glory of the entire temple complex located there.

As you travel in a clockwise direction around the park, which seems to be the way it's done, the next temple that you'll come to is Bayon. Bayon is only 100 years different in age from Angkor Wat, and it is nearly as impressive. If Angkor Wat had never been built, I believe there would still be plenty of tourists visiting the world-famous temple of Bayon.

This is Bayon's south gate. The symbol of Bayon is the smiling face of Avalokiteshvara, and you realize that immediately as there are rows of smiling statues leading up to its massive gates, which are also studded with more faces on the upper portion above the entrance, although that's not so obvious in this low-resolution picture. If you have your driver stop, you can climb up a hill at the shoulder of the gate and take a picture of the smiling faces on the side of the upper level from almost straight on. I did.

The most dramatic thing about TA Prohm, however are the giant trees that have grown over top the temple. The Lonely Planet guidebook describes the situation by saying that the temple lies in a "tentacled embrace" with the trees. I could not a say it any better. The trees and the moss combine for a very exotic and eerie effect. All the time I was there I was thinking that it looked like the kind of scene that Indiana Jones could come running out of, chased by a large rolling boulder.

I know they sell three-day passes to the park for $40, but after about six hours of climbing up, down, and through temples, I was ready to move on. My driver took me down to the Tonle Sap for little boat ride. As you leave Siem Reap for the 10-minute drive south to the lake you notice, just past the crocodile farm, the water begin on the east side of the road. The houses are all on stilts and there were sandbags on the side of the road, so it's obvious that the water can get quite high. Lots a children are playing in the water, the boys naked and the girls in T-shirts and panties for a little early training in modesty. Before the road ends it becomes more of a causeway than a road. There were a lot of rather rickety, open-sided lean-tos along the road. My moto driver told me they were for picnics. Nobody there, so maybe on the weekends. There were also tour boats with lines of seats with life jackets on them, but they looked almost abandoned, too. Maybe in the high season?

I clicked this picture of a mother carrying her child over the shoulder of my moto driver. The water starts just to the right, as you can see in the picture below.

After the houses and house boats, there are a few tourist "fish farm" boats. There are some very active fish on them that they feed continuously to keep them flipping. There are also tethered monkeys, pelicans with their wings clipped, baby crocs, and other things that tourists may find interesting. Oh, and cold drinks, too.

After that, it's just water all the way to Phnom Penh. The lake, although it never gets very deep, is huge, and there's no way you could see either shore. I've taken a lot of pictures from boats, but they're usually not very interesting. You just a lot of sky and a lot of water and not much subject, and the pictures look rather sparse. I like the way this one came out, though, and the polarizing filter helped. Where did the horizon go?

I'll include this one just for a laugh. There are many, many places to check your e-mail in Siem Reap, like the "Bill Gate Center" pictured here. Previous to going, I had read that the connections were incredibly slow, and I can now vouch for that. If you are using browser-based e-mail as most are on the road, you may find the experience a little too frustrating to bear. I did. If you're moving on to Phnom Penh or the other way to Bangkok, it may be better to just hold off and e-mail from there if you can wait. (At least that's the way it was in 2002, when this was written - Glenn, 2008).

I'll leave you with a few things I learned on the trip:

1. There are automated money changers that take US$100 bills and change them into Thai baht BEFORE you go through customs by the carousels at the international terminal in Bangkok. You can have money changed before your bags when come down the shoot.(Note: This was the old Don Muang airport, not the new Suvarnabhumi airport.- Glenn, 2008)
   
2. If you are just transiting in Bangkok, I can recommend where I stay, at the K.T. Guest House. It's not far from the (Don Muang) airport, spotlessly clean, and very reasonable. Even if you don't want to stay there, their English-language website has lots of good information about Bangkok.
3. For taxis in Bangkok, just go outside and get in line. You'll pay a B50 surcharge for no apparent reason, but it will be much cheaper than the ISO 9002 taxis.
4. Taxis are metered and may be even cheaper than the tuk-tuks that look cheaper. Taxis may be so heavily air-conditioned that your glasses fog on exiting, though.
5. Take a passport-style picture and US$20 with you for your Cambodian visa. The actual procedure will take 10 minutes.
6. US dollars are accepted, even preferred, anywhere you go. You will be disadvantaging yourself if you change too much money into Cambodian riel.
7. Taxis into Siem Reap from the airport are $5; motos are $1. The drivers don't get the money.
8. Entrance to the temples of Angkor is free after 4 pm if you have a ticket for the next day.
9. The best lighting for pictures of Angkor Wat is in late afternoon.
10. You can stay in an OK room in Siem Reap for $15 a night.
11. Siem Reap is safe to walk around, including at night.
12. The Angkor archeological zone is huge and you need a driver. Motos should go for about $6 all day.
13. Electricity in Cambodia is 220V. The sockets all take both flat or round plugs. I took an adapter but never used it.
14. Don't drink the water. Don't even brush with it. I took some Listerine to use after brushing, etc.
15. Towels are placed on the beds, not in the shower. You may find yourself wet with the towels out in the room.
16. Bathroom flip-flops have wedges cut in the toes to help the hotel owners to pair them up and to distinguish them from the ones you may have worn in.
    

If you are traveling all the way to the temples of Angkor from America or Europe, you'll certainly be giving them a much more in-depth look than I did. I was being too ambitious for the time I had, and I ended up having an "overview tour," you might say. I certainly enjoyed my two days in Siem Reap, though, and I'm sure you will, too.

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