Cambodia Part II- Siem Reap

We journeyed north by bus from Phenom Penh to Siem Reap. The bus was surprisingly nice and not at all reminiscent of our African bus trip last year (for those of you who remember that!) 

Our primary destination was the famous Angkor Wat Temples (if you haven’t heard of them just think of the movie Tomb Raider which was filmed there). We have never taken either of our kids into a temple before because we haven't wanted to expose them to the spiritual atmosphere.  However we both felt ok about Angkor Wat  (or “angkor watch” as Josiah calls it) since they they are more cultural ruins that active temples. I was imagining us dragging our kids up and down the ancient steps, but they were actually quite into it. We did have to motivate (bribe) them with gummy bears, juice boxes, a wooden flute, and ice cream over the course of the day- but mostly the ruins to them were like a giant stone playground to explore and climb on.  Annette amazed us with her stamina and smiles, and she wasn't at all afraid of the relief sculptures of faces as we had anticipated. Josiah has become aware that some people pray to statues instead of Jesus . Any sculpture we see now he asks if people worship it, even if it is just art in an airport (:

Angkor Wat did not have great planning  for toilets and there seemed to be 3 stalls for the 20,000 visitors. This was a bit of a hardship for the pregnant woman and toddler trying to stay hydrated. At one point when we were deep in a temple Annette had to desperately "go."  Not knowing what else to do I had her squat on  a pile of 11th century ruins. Yikes! I'm not sure how impressed the European backpackers touring with us were with this!

 Some of the detail was amazing!

 This temple was cool because they left it overgrown with trees

Jason is teaching World Religions this semester so he took a particular interest in the Buddhist and Hindhu history at Angkor Wat. One afternoon he visited a temple to talk to some monks. He got to know a man who was sent by his family to be a monk at age age 10. He had heard of Christianity, but thought it was the same as Buddhism. When Jason talked about Jesus, he said, “who is that?” He said he had never heard of him! The monk had little hope that he would do enough in this lifetime to become “enlightened”. So sad. Jason walked away extremely thankful for the gift of grace. 

 Cooling off back at the hotel

 Siem Reap gets 3 1/2 million tourists a year so there were lots of restaurants, night markets and $2 pedicures along street which Annette and I enjoyed!

This was our favorite place that we stayed