Angkor Wat sans mon appareil photo

Having intended to get up early, by the time I'd slept in a bit, had breakfast, gone through every bike at the guesthouse and finding none fitted even my accomodating standards (the key criteria of which are: ability to change through more than 1 gear, air in tyres and one partially working brake) it was gone 10.30 When I got to the bike shop I found all of their bikes with gears were being comendered for a charity bike rally the following morning. One of the organisers gave me a leaflet and encouraged me to join in. So I hired one of the remaining ladies bike and decided to take it easy and get up the next day. Unfortuantely it took me another 2 1/2 hours to get to Angkor Wat after stopping to get photographs and waiting an age for them to print and cut them out and then going the wrong way to the temple and being sent back to the ticket office with rubbish directions that meant I went up and down the same road twice. The photo stop was on the advice of the Lonely Planets advice, which was completely uncessary as the ticket booth they took my photo for free in about 10 seconds. (See my Lonely Planet Review see bottom panel) So after stopping for some noodles, I finally got to Angkor Wat at about 2pm.

No superlatives do justice to this place and pictures certainly don;t convey it's impact. It is simply awe-inspiring. It the largest religious building in the world and an archetectural wonder the likes of which the world will never see again. And I'd left my camera battery recharging in my guesthouse.

Yet after cursing myself queitly for a few minutes, this act of supreme absent-mindedness even by my low standards was actually completely liberating as I was able to take it all in and soak up some of the splendour of it without trying to capture it in inferior pixels.

Walking across the moat, you enter through the Western entrance and coming out the otherside is an incredibly uplifting experience as you witness a huge stone causeway leading up to this huge structure looming up out of the green against a clear blue backdrop.

I then moved on to Angkor Thom and it's central Baphour, a facscinating mass of face-shaped towers. At this point I was still seriously considering getting up at 5am to see the sunrise and go on a 50km cycle rally, so I cycled back into town. However by that evening I'd decided to downgrade to the 5km run on the Sunday as I didn't feel too well.

Photo of Ankhor Wat taken on 2nd December: