Category Archives: Cambodia

Angkor Wat Siem Reap Cambodia

By chance my brother was coming to Asia on a business trip, he was going to be in Kualu Lumpur, Malaysia then Bangkok, Thailand. I was going to go and meet him in KL but having flown in and out of there a few times and knowing theres not too much to see we also suggested Singapore. Theres always things to see and do in the ever change face of Singapore but i knew that he would be visiting Asia again and the cities are always the easiest places to get to so i thought of something completely different to see.

A must see thing in Asia is the impressive and amazing Khymer temples at Angkor Wat. Some of them made over 1200 years old and abandoned 3-400 years later they were only mostly rediscovered in the 21st century, some as early as the 70’s. Amazing that these huge temples were consumed by the jungles and nobody knew they were there for hundreds of years. Angkor Wat is the best known temple as it is the one that has been restored the most and therefore the most complete. Some have been left as they were found with the jungle growing up through them almost consuming them.

I met my brother in Siem Reap early on saturday morning and we had 3 full days to explore the temples. I had organised a guide and a tuk tuk to take us around some of the temples on the first day and a car on the second day as we were going slightly further afield.

Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat sunrise
angkor wat
Top of Angkor Wat
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Phnom Penh Revisited

I returned to the Phnom Penh for a few days and returned to the river front area. It had been about 6 weeks since i was last here and the rainy season had started when i was down towards the coast. In only a short time the difference was very noticeable in the river.

Previously you could see some land at the edge of the river banks and at the junction of the two rivers, now it was completely flooded and water was moving fast. In the dry season the water drains from the Tonle Sap lake, one of the largest fresh water lakes in Asia, then in the wet season it reverses and the lake then floods from 5000 sq meteres to 12000 sq meters.

The river in the dry – you see the large grassy bank next to the block of flights in the background and the grass area in the foreground next to the paved riverfront –

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Phnom Penh dry season
Now those areas completey submerged and the river has already risen quite a few feet –
phnom penh revisited
Phnom Penh wet season