Angkor Wat!

Again, we woke up early for a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm temples, built in the 1100's by Buddhists, then Hindus, then taken back by the Buddhists.  Before we left, though, we face timed Megan and Todd.  It was fun to talk to them.  I sure love Todd!  He's so cute!  Megan is trying to figure out a bunch of stuff and wanted our advice.  A lot of it Megan needs to make a decision herself on, not me anymore!  :)  It feels so great to finally let her make the decisions and to not be in charge anymore!  Adulting is so much fun!!  Our tour guide was absolutely amazing!  We learned so much about the history of Cambodia and so MANY other things from him!  He works for National Geographic!!  It was REALLY super hot and humid (hottest day yet) but we got to travel between temples via an air conditioned bus and had the tour guides' commentary along the way.  We got to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat-- the first temple.  We got there and it was dark-- we had to watch where we were stepping, because everything is very uneven in ruins!  It was a lot cooler in the morning.  There is some amazing detail in the carving in the stone columns!  I thought it was funny that we were required to cover our shoulders and wear pants to the knees when there were some pretty naked women in the carvings!  It's a Buddist temple, so they don't want to offend the monks, but those same monks walk past those carvings every single day!  I just think that is so hypocritical... and they turn you away if you're not dressed appropriately!  I, of course, wouldn't dress immodestly, but I just thought that was such a double standard!!  In some places you can still see the original color of the paint on the stone!   There are Buddhas carved everywhere, and when the Hindus took it over, those just became their god!  Hahahaha!  Who knew?!  A Buddha can double as a Hindu god!  There were also a lot of monkeys that absolutely stole the show as we were walking away to leave.  We sat and watched them for quite a while!  (There was a later tour and I'm so glad we didn't go on that one, as it got hot quickly!)  We had a nice breakfast provided for us at a restaurant there by the first temple inside the park.  The last temple, Ta Prohm, had trees growing all throughout the ruins, which was the reason it all came down.  They are trying to restore it, but if they take the trees  out, it will cause more problems!  It was crazy!!  This temple is featured in the movie "Tomb Raider" with Angelina Jolie... now I'm interested in watching it!  It was definitely my favorite of all 3!!  We took a lot of pictures!!  (Our guide took a lot of panos for us!) 

This afternoon Bill and I just relaxed in our COOL hotel room...it was nice to have some down time!!  Tonight we had our Theme Dinner away from the hotel at a really cool venue!!  They had traditional dancers and a nice buffet dinner.  We were tired so we took the first bus back to the hotel.  We sat with the Danleys and their friends from Texas.  He's a Regional Leader there.  They were funny!!  Glad to be back in our room!  Time for BED!!!