Exploring Angkor Wat

I think Cambodia is my new favourite place. We're in Siem Reap at the moment, and we're being typical tourists for what feels like the first time on our trip. Even though we spent 6 weeks in India, we never really visited a place just to see a particular sight, and the only temples we saw were the ones we stumbled across rather than specifically set out to see. But you really can't come to Cambodia and not visit Angkor Wat - the Cambodians are so proud of it that it features on their national flag, currency and even their beer bottles. And it doesn't take long to see what all the fuss is about - the ruins and temples of Angkor are stunning. We spent a couple of days this week exploring them and taking loads of pictures, including a few cheesy ones for good measure - you know the sort I mean... 'Karl gazing thoughtfully out of window' and so on.

The most popular ruins are the Angkor Wat temple, which have beautiful engraving and windows perfect for posing in:


Meanwhile, Angkor Thom used to be the capital city back in the 12th century:


We also visited few jungle temples. They generally tend to have great big trees growing over and around them, so they're not in the best condition, but they look very cool and are excellent for exploring. In fact, we spent quite a while climbing around and playing at being adventurers (I was Indiana and Karl was Jones). Lots of fun, lots of pictures and lots of sunburn for Karl. Oops. Here's the pics:


To balance out all this cultural activity, we've also been lazing around in our lovely hostel and making new friends. We didn't seem to come across other backpackers very often in India, and it's really nice to finally find other people to both interrogate about their trip and bore with tales of ours. The other day, we joined a group from our hostel and went to a pub quiz, and came 3rd! (yes, there were more than three teams) This success was largely down to the fact that a LOT of the questions were about the US, and we had two very knowledgeable Americans with us. We celebrated by heading down to a bar called 'Angkor What?' and drinking buckets of vodka & red bull, dancing in the street, and spending the whole of the following day being too hungover to function. Yay, holiday!