January 24. Angkor Wat

Written by Jack van Ommen on January 24th, 2010

This is one of the first Sundays that there are no pictures of the inside of a church, just temples. We visited 6 different temple ruins. I’ll spare you the names. Tomorrow we will visit the actual Angkor Wat ruins, together with another 4 or sights. It is hard to even try to explain the immense size of this whole complex. Only recently have archeologist discovered from satellite imagery that the area stretches out much further than we had before taken for granted. The pictures also showed the details of the aqua ducts that irrigated Ankor and it’s surroundings, from the Mekong and the nearby lakes. An area much greater than, as an example, the city of London, where at the time these immense structures were started the city of London counted around 60,000 inhabitants. Fortunately we did not run into the same hordes like the ones we witnessed last night viewing just another sunset. We are sharing a tuc-tuc ( a four person two wheeled trailer hitched to a light motor cycle) with Sigrid and Juergen Pastor, a German couple we met on the boat and who also happen to be staying in our hotel. They are cycling through Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for 4 weeks. They are from Saxonia, between Leipzig and Dresden. They are in their late fifties and have cycled all over Europe and also once participated in an organized cycle tour through Oregon. I hope to see them again in Germany.

 

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