In the eight years since I was last here Siem Reap's tourism has exploded. So our primary concern was crowd-avoidance. Fortunately everyone else is working hard to get their money's worth. They get up to watch the sunrise over the ruins. When we finally rolled out of town around noon everyone else was eating lunch and we consistently had these wonders to ourselves. Very cool.
Aaron loves to list and order by preference our trip's experiences. The four-faced towers at Bayon were Aaron's favorite sight in the entire collection. If judged by number of photos taken, they were mine as well, though I resist the exercise in general. At any rate, this was the first place we visited in our three days in the temples, and we chose to return at the end of our last day as well.
Other famous photo-ops included the overgrown walls of Ta Prohm (in far worse shape than I remembered it):
The carvings at the Leper King Terrace:
And of course the featured attraction, Angkor Wat:
Our lazy schedule was of greatest advantage here. We ran into a few folks at the entrance but then had the inner courtyards, reliefs, and surrounding grounds seemingly to ourselves. We saw the hordes pouring in as we made our exit. There are plenty of nice photos out there of Angkor Wat, so you get to enjoy my personal obsession with the window columns and apsara carvings:
Now as to the title of this post. Throughout this trip Aaron has spent a lot of time photographing animals instead of wonders of the world. Turtles at the Acropolis. Geese and goats at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. This reached a kind of fever pitch in Angkor, where Aaron declared the trip worthwhile only after we met up with this Vietnamese Centipede:
So in honor of Aaron's twin delights (random creatures and listing stuff we saw), my favorite insect from Angkor was this red and gold dragonfly:
My least favorite were the cicadas. OK that's not true, because my least favorite insects everywhere are mosquitoes, cockroaches, and bed bugs. But these guys are gross and in Angkor they were sometimes so loud we were shouting to hear one another. This is not a live cicada (they're a bit shy), but his former skeleton. Like I said, gross.
One benefit of the development here is the number of good meals available. The best, was this Amok-style fish (cooked in curry and coconut milk and served with morning glories over rice = $5):
xoxo Jessie
In the eight years since I was last here Siem Reap's tourism has exploded. So our primary concern was crowd-avoidance. Fortunately everyone else is working hard to get their money's worth. They get up to watch the sunrise over the ruins. When we finally rolled out of town around noon everyone else was eating lunch and we consistently had these wonders to ourselves. Very cool.
Aaron loves to list and order by preference our trip's experiences. The four-faced towers at Bayon were Aaron's favorite sight in the entire collection. If judged by number of photos taken, they were mine as well, though I resist the exercise in general. At any rate, this was the first place we visited in our three days in the temples, and we chose to return at the end of our last day as well.
Other famous photo-ops included the overgrown walls of Ta Prohm (in far worse shape than I remembered it):
The carvings at the Leper King Terrace:
And of course the featured attraction, Angkor Wat:
Our lazy schedule was of greatest advantage here. We ran into a few folks at the entrance but then had the inner courtyards, reliefs, and surrounding grounds seemingly to ourselves. We saw the hordes pouring in as we made our exit. There are plenty of nice photos out there of Angkor Wat, so you get to enjoy my personal obsession with the window columns and apsara carvings:
Now as to the title of this post. Throughout this trip Aaron has spent a lot of time photographing animals instead of wonders of the world. Turtles at the Acropolis. Geese and goats at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. This reached a kind of fever pitch in Angkor, where Aaron declared the trip worthwhile only after we met up with this Vietnamese Centipede:
So in honor of Aaron's twin delights (random creatures and listing stuff we saw), my favorite insect from Angkor was this red and gold dragonfly:
My least favorite were the cicadas. OK that's not true, because my least favorite insects everywhere are mosquitoes, cockroaches, and bed bugs. But these guys are gross and in Angkor they were sometimes so loud we were shouting to hear one another. This is not a live cicada (they're a bit shy), but his former skeleton. Like I said, gross. 
One benefit of the development here is the number of good meals available. The best, was this Amok-style fish (cooked in curry and coconut milk and served with morning glories over rice = $5):
xoxo Jessie
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