Shanghai Times

I felt that it was necessary to add another entry dedicated to the time we spent exploring the Temples of Angkor. Besides Angkor Wat, we explored the equally impressive temples in the ancient city of Angkor Thom (the capital of the Khmer empire) as well as some of the smaller temples a bit further away.

At the center of Angkor Thom is Bayon, King Jayavarman’s state temple. Bayon has been restored beautifully, and it was my favorite temple to explore. Throughout the temple are over 200 faces resembling the king (see our Cambodia entry).

Ta Prohm is a temple that has not been restored. Because of its natural state, it is possible to experience at this temple the wonder of the early explorers when they came upon these monuments in the middle of the nineteenth century. At one time, this temple took over 80,000 people to maintain. I felt like Indiana Jones while exploring this one.

The interior of these temples contained a lot of hidden carvings, some of which so small you really have to take your time to notice.

Here are some extra pictures from Ha Long Bay, Vietnam:

And here are some pictures from Thailand:

And two more from Malaysia:

We'll add more pictures from the Temples of Angkor on our next entry.

We flew from Bangkok into Kuala Lumpur. We met our friend Sue Gee (an exchange student whom I befriended at WMU) and her family was kind enough to let us stay at their home. They drove us to the infamous Hindu Batu Caves, a limestone hill in the north of Kuala Lumpur which has a series of beautiful caves.

The next day we headed to Taman Negara, a 140 million year old rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia (older than any rainforest in the world, even South America and Africa. The forest has been always been a protected nature reserve. The jungle contains over 10,000 species of plants and 350 species of birds. Local mammals include mouse deer, barking deer, tapirs, wild boars, elephants, rhinos, leopards, tigers, and monkeys. We were able to stay with the Orang Asili tribe in the jungle, natives whom live off the land. They have no electricity and hunt with poison blow darts and live in man-made huts made of straw and wood. We were able to stay with them by presenting the chief with a gift. In return, he gave us a hut to sleep in and even took us hunting in the jungle during the dark of the night. Our guides pointed out many different plant and animal species to us, including deer, deer mouse, bird-eating tarantulas, inch-long ants, many different birds, and a really interesting glow in the dark mushroom. The rain forest is not a quiet place. In some respects it is as noisy as any big city with a cacophony of insect noises, bird calls, and animal cries that goes on night and day. We heard strange sounds during the night, and the chief told us the noises we heard were native tigers (only 200 remain in the entire 4,343 sq. km Jungle). We also went white-water rafting, which was very exciting.






After a few days in Taman Negara, we returned to KL, where we visited little India, Chinatown, and the infamous Petronas Towers. Of course, we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe on Valentines Day.

Amara here. Our trip to Cambodia became longer then we had originally planned. But we both enjoyed the country so much that we decided to stay and see more then just Ankor Wat. Our bus ride into Cambodia was very difficult. We were victims of the bus scam thats common between Bangkok to Siem Reap. Once across the border of Cambodia there was no bus waiting for us to continue onto Siem Reap and we spent around three hours of the afternoon just sitting around. They purposely make the trip long and difficult so that when you finally arrive in Siem Reap after nearly sixteen hours of travel, you'll stay at whatever guesthouse the bus brings you too. Erik and I, of course, left as soon as the bus stopped to the anger of the hotel employees and found a much nicer guesthouse right in town.

The temples of Ankor are just amazing. It's hard to believe they were built more then one thousand years ago. Here's some pictures.

After Siem Reap, we decided to visit the capitol, Phnom Pen. We were able to visit all the tourist sights that focus on the tragedy the Khmer Rouge brought to Cambodia. We visited the prison museum where the Khmer Rouge questioned, tortured, and eventually killed many Cambodian people. We also visited the famed Killing Fields where they disposed of the dead bodies. It was a very sad experience, but good to see.

What surprised me at the prison museum was the exhibit on the water boarding technique used to torture victims. It disgusted me that my country uses the same techniques.

Cambodia is still feeling the after effects of the destructive Khmer Rouge regime. It's impossible to not notice the poverty in the country. We became very aware when we were visiting a temple in Phnom Pen. Monkeys lived around the temple and Erik, of course, bought bananas to feed them. We noticed a little girl watching us as we were feeding the monkeys. She was a street kid, dirty and just wearing a little skirt, no shirt. It was such a sad moment because we realized she was probably hungry and we were just feeding the monkeys. So we gave her the rest of the bananas. It was a heart warming moment because as soon as we walked away, all her little friends came running up to here and she distrubuted the bananas so everyone had one. I would love to return to Cambodia to do some volunteer work at some point.

With a couple more days to kill before our flight left for Malaysia, we decided to go to Sihanoukville, a beach town in Southern Cambodia. It was highly recommended by other backpackers. It was a nice couple days laying on the beach, swimming in such warm water. I got really sunburned though.

Luckily, our trip back into Bangkok was not nearly so troublesome. We took a boat to the border, spent the night and then took a nice safe government bus back to Bangkok. We look forward to being in Kuala Lampur tomorrow!