After our hair-raising bus ride into Cambodia, we arrived in the charming town of Siem Reap. After hours and hours on a dirt road through rice paddies, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Siem Reap is a town filled with nice restaurants, open markets, museums, world class hotels, hot air balloon rides and more to see and do than we could possibly have time for in our three days in town.
The reason the town is so developed is the millions of tourists that come from around the world to visit the ancient Khmer temples of Angkor Wat. These temples were created over a few hundred years from about 800AD to 1200AD by various kings of the Khmer Empire, which stretched across SE Asia before its collapse. Many claim these temples were lost and only recently discovered in the 1800s by a French explorer, Henri Mouhout, but the Cambodians would strongly disagree that they never "lost" hundreds of acres of ancient sacred Hindu and Buddhist temples and monuments, they always knew it was here.
With the help of Lucky, our fearless Tuk Tuk driver we spent the first day diligently touring as many temples (including the one used to film Lara Croft Tomb Raider!) as our legs and feet could handle before heading back for a nice dinner in town.
The following morning we did as every guide book and friend has told us we must, and awoke at 4:30 to make the trek to see the sunrise over the temple of Angkor Wat. This experience has been described to us as "soul-inspiring," "transcendent" and "a spiritual experience." We stood on the grounds of the temple from 5am-6:30am with hundreds of other tourists hoping for the same life-changing experience, cameras ready to capture every breath-taking moment.
We waited... and waited....
90 minutes later it was a little lighter out, but no blaze of blinding light, no moment of indescribable beauty, just haze and clouds covering the gray sky.
We walked back to our tuk-tuk worried about what we would say to Lucky about the experience, after he woke up so early to drive us and clearly wanted us to love it. Lucky, however, said it best as soon as he saw us, "the sun did not rise today."
It turns out, Lucky informed us, a typhoon was in the process of pummeling the Philippines, the effects of which we felt a few minutes later when the heavens opened up and it began to pour. We bought matching ponchos and gave it our best effort to continue touring the temples, but eventually gave in and decided it would be much more pleasant to return to town and eat pizza in an Italian cafe :-)
I love what Lucky had to say, truly, it is one of those statements that is deeper than logic and funny. lovely.
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