Our day trip to Angkor Wat started bright and early with a 6:50am pick up for the tour of Angkor Wat. Although we were all tired and grumbling about the wake up time, we knew that given the heat and crowds it was best to start the tour as early as possible, Our tour guide, Veasna, got right down to business during the 20 minute drive to the temples, outlining the schedule for the 9-hour tour. While the temples are commonly referred to as "Angor Wat," there is actually a collection of temples.

We started with Angkor Wat, which Veasna explained was originally built as a Hindu temple, then changed to a Buddhist site in the 12th century. We were impressed to see how easily the two traditions fit together in the temple, with detailed images of Hindu myths alongside large statues of the Buddha. We spent 2 1/2 hours at the Angkor Wat temple, including getting the requisite photo next to the reflecting pool behind the temple. By then we were ready for an early lunch. then drove over Ta Prohm, a temple famous for the massive trees growing over, around, and through the structure, and for being featured in the movie Tomb Raider. It was here that our tour guide really earned our affection by showing us the power of vertical panaroma on the Iphone camera, allowing us to get some great shots of trees growing out of the temple. We enjoyed a nice change of pace by visiting the Ta Nei temple next, which is barely visited by tourists since it has not been restored and is therefore full of piles of stones.

Our final stop of the day was Angkor Thom. the capital city of the Khmer empire, which is surrounded by an 8-mile long man-made moat which is so large that it could be mistaken for a river, We were all exhausted from the heat, so we saw much of the city by car and got out only to explore the temple at the center and to climb the large city gates. With several hours to kill before our flight to Bangkok, we returned to Siem Reap to enjoy the hotel pool and eat dinner. We flew Thai Smile back to Bangkok (we had been flying the low-cost AirAsia until now), The flight, on an Airbus 380, had literally 10 other passengers besides ourselves and the 6 flight attendants, Because the flight was so empty, we were able to take off a half hour early and get to our hostel in Bangkok around 11pm. We are staying near Khaosan Road in what is known as the "backpacker's ghetto," an entirely accurate term since we see about as many Westerners as locals in the area.