Angkor Temples: They Don't Build Them Like This Anymore!

Sorry for the delay, but Internet is all but cheap in the remoteness of a Thai island. I've been wanting to bury the creepy entry about Pol Pot's murders for more than two weeks, it's time to show the bright side of Cambodia's history.

There was a time when Cambodia was the pretty girl of Southeast Asia, a glittering empire that arouse astonishment -as well as fear- amongst the neighbour nations. During those golden years the Khmer devarajas (good-kings) paid homage to the gods by building the greatest religious complex ever created in history: the Angkor temples.

One sunny morning almost one thousand years later a sweaty Spaniard (that would be me) broke through the vast compound on a rusty bicycle. Poor soul! the naive explorador had surely underestimated the area of the worship field. After more than 7 hours pedaling under an evil sun and only a couple of temples glanced the wannabe Indiana Jones cursed himself for not having done his homework before setting off that morning. Lesson learnt: always check the distances before leaving.

The next morning the sunburned fellow (that would be me again), Johanna (28, Portuguese) and Evo (27, German) teamed up to explore the temples emulating Lara Croft's Tomb Rider - except for the fact that she didn't use a tuk-tuk. The tour included a mere third of the total amount of temples, enough to get an idea of the grandeur of the place. The highlights of the day were: Massive tree growing on temple, Big stone heads drooling at the sight of ColaCao and last but not least: the ColaCao handstand in front of the legendary Angkor temple. Regarding the latter, I got the feeling that I had seen it somewhere before... but where?

In conclusion an unforgettable day at the temples in great company. Hopefully this entry will make justice to this beautiful country that everyone should visit at least once in their life.

Interesting things that I've learnt:

• At the time that the temples were built, Angkor boasted a population of one million (200x the population of London).
• The Khmers used wood for any other construction except for the temples. The gods deserved stone.
• 20 kilometers -that I covered by bike- from the temples there is a very interesting landmine museum where one can see and learn how landmines are dismantled.
  

---

Siento no haber posteado nada, pero la conexion a internet en las islas tailandesas es del todo menos barata. Voy a intentar borrar el mal sabor de boca que dejo mi anterior articulo sobre los asesinatos del regimen de Pol Pot con un resumen de mi visita a los templos de Angkor.

Estos templos representan -por mucho que digan- una de las siete maravillas del mundo. El complejo, el mayor parque religioso del mundo, incluye unos centenares de templos del los que solo pude dar cuenta de algunos. Para mas informacion sobre quien, cuando y por que fueron construidos os podeis dar un garbeo por este articulo de la wikipedia: Angkor. Mi visita, la cual comparti con Johanna y Evo (una pareja muy maja), se resume en tres imagenes: 1) Arbol gigante sobre templo gigante, 2) Cabezas gigantes a las que se les cae la baba ante mi bote de ColaCao y 3) Pino dos apoyos + ColaCao en frente del mitico templo de Angkor. Con dos h*evos! Pues nada mas, solo espero que estas fotos os animen a descubrir unos de los paises mas interesantes (por km cuadrado) del mundo.