Saigon, Vietnam
Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and all of the temples of Angkor were incredibly beautiful, large, and moving, and in general, have left me inarticulate and speechless so bear with this blog. A few of the temples were still in the midst of the jungle where you could see how nature's trees have destroyed many of the walls and buildings. Chuong, Linh and I rented mountain bikes on our first day to ride around the outskirts of the temples. We spent two days exploring the temples and their ruins and enjoyed a short tour of one of the temples by a local guide of about 9 years old. In one of the buildings, the boy explained to us how as you walk towards the center of the temple, the doorways gradually decrease in height. The reason for it was to force all entrants to bow to the Buddha upon approach. The kids here learn English from the time they're babies from the tourists, it's amazing. Many of them speak French as well. It's interesting though - most of their goods sold at market actually come from Thailand, and one can see the Thai influence on the design of Cambodian products.

The weather was pretty hot so we cooled off with some cold coconuts by a drink stand where we met an interesting German cultural anthropologist named Mark who spoke Vietnamese and owned an FM2 just like mine. Though two days time was good enough to explore the highlights and major buildings, perhaps an extra day or two is really necessary to absorb all of the information and history of the temples of Angkor.