Angkor Wat

Here are a few pictures my brother just emailed me from our Cambodia trip(as Eric was in charge of the Cambodia posts…I’m not sure if we are going to get them on the blog before we go to Greece).


Here is my family (my brother Peter, my father, mother, myself and Eric)standing at the most popular “tourist spot” in front of the Angkor Wat temples. I put tourist spot in quotation marks because it’s amazing how full and rich of history this country is, yet the tourism is almost null. Specifically, Angkor Wat means City Temple. It was first built in the 12th century…but due to political change and unrest, was lost until it was re-discovered two centuries later. This is a real life Duck Tales, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider (this is actually where Tomb Raider was filmed) story. CRAZY!!!


Sad…we still have a lot of pictures to post detailing the sad history outside of Angkor Wat in Cambodia…a French explorer described Angkor Wat as, “One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.”



Here is a carving I liked, it is of a male and two female "Devatas" (demigods and demigoddesses positioned as guardians of the temples)…they were ALL amazing…the workmanship and the symbolism in each carving…and the fact that it still remains so intact after so many centuries…it’s unfathomable!


Here is Eric with a HUGE shrimp…it’s funny how many people don’t know what shrimp look like in it’s natural form…and how everyone wants to call it a prawn…prawns and shrimp (for culinary references) are the exact same thing….it just depends on where you are…a prawn in Australia IS a shrimp in America…unless you’re at a pseudo up-class restaurant and they want to put on an air of sophistication…they’ll tear open their Costco bought shrimp and label it prawns and everyone will, “ooh” and “aaahh!.” So, there you have it…Eric and his shrimp.