In Siem Reap, the land of the Angkor Kingdom, you can see life as it has been for a millenium: young children playing in a large pond created by the recently arrived rainy season, enjoying the blossoming lotus and other flowers that add color to the innumerous shades of green and brown that fill their lives; stilt houses made simply from materials easily derived from the natural surroundings; wooden carts beneath each stilt house; and rice paddies being plowed as they have been for tens of generations. War, it is said, first amongst the gods, later with the Cham, the Burmese, the Thai, the Vietnamese, and more recently amongst themselves, has kept Cambodia and her people poor. The temples of Angkor, the mightiest of which are believed to have been started under a god-king who came from Java where the temples of Prambanan look astonishingly similar, are a reminder to Cambodians and visitors alike of the splendor that can be Cambodian culture. Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Banteay Srei are the most remarkably preserved physical reminders of this once great culture through bas reliefs, sculptures and other architectural wonders that recorded the life, beliefs (Hindu and Buddhist), and wars of the Cambodian people hundreds of of years ago.
These pictures are a small glimpse at Siem Reap and the ruins that remind us of the great culture of Angkor near the life-giving Tonle Sap river.
Pop-up Cyber Galleries: Angkor Thom: 
Angkor Wat:
