The Temples of Angkor Watt

Life is not measured by how many breaths you take – but how many moments take your breath away!
The great temples of Angkor Watt definitely lived up to those once in a lifetime experiences where you feel reduced to a little speck of dust like in Horton the Elephant hears a who, standing before one of the great wonders of the world.
I got up at five in the morning to start my day touring the temples alone (day off from the family) – only accompanied by our friendly tuk-tuk driver Mr. Lucky. I was dropped off at the main entrance to Angkor Watt and I immediately started heading for the spot where you see the Sun rise behind the main Temple of Angkor. Luckily I was prepared and had a flashlight with me in order to make my way in the pitch black morning climbing steps and stones. I reached the popular view spot and found a group of maybe 15 people who had been up even earlier than me in order to secure a first row spot! The sellers had also risen early and were ready with hot tea & coffee and as people started pouring in little after little they made a booming business. I got a good spot sitting on one of the stone staircases and there was a great sensation of anticipation and excitement amongst the crowd. However, I question myself sometimes – why is that people have to talk (loudly) when experiencing these magical moments? In this case, I wish I had a magic wand that I could just put a spell on people so that they would just shut up for 2 minutes!
Anyways, the sun rose and you could see the reflection of the temple in the lake in front. It was a truly amazing and mind-blowing sight. Experiencing that I couldn´t help but thinking of the character of Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larssons trilogy. She mentions how she has never sat on the ruins of Angkor Watt and I thought about how her character would have marveled at the sight and then afterwards would have gone to kick some bad guys butt on top of Angkor Thom Temple. I also got reminded of the time when I and two fellow travel mates, Marty from Oregon and Sidney from Vancouver, decided to spend the night on top of the Mayan temple of Tikal in Guatemala. We had bribed the temple-guards to let us stay and we sat all night listening to the jaguars’ howling and telling each other spooky stories to the point where we were almost peeing in our sleeping bags with fright. Defenitely a night to remember!
I spent the rest of the day just walking around admiring the ancient architecture skills and the intricate patterns inside some of the temples. I was sweaty rugged and dirty after climbing around for 8 hours, but could easily have been sold off to a middleaged guy from Tawain who thought I looked absolutely marvelous and kept photographing me. When asked where I was from and I had responded 10 times Denmark and he kept saying “ahh Denver”, I hurried down from the temple with his invitations to visit in Taiwan lingering in the air. Ten minutes later a twenty year old temple-guard asked me if I was single and if I wanted a boyfriend. I wonder if it was the musty smell of sweet combined with my complete camuflage outfit and my absolutely sunburnt nose – but somehow I didn´t find it flattering and thought it was time to find good old tuk-tuk driver Mr. Lucky to drive me home. I rounded of the tour by paying my respects to Buddha, lit some incense (and paid the pushy seller of it a dollar) asking for good health a safe journey and that Josh would not want to sell me to a Taiwanese Denver-fan!
Angkor What?
Angkor was the capital of the mighty Khmer Empire from the 9th – 14th century. From here the dynasty of Khmer kings ruled one of the most sophisticated kingdoms in history of South-East Asia. The construction of the ancient capital lasted for more than 300 years and underwent several changes in architecture and religions. The whole site covers more than 250 kilometers and includes more than a 1000 different archaeological sites.