Today is the start of our big adventure to explore the Angkor complex.  Most foreigners refer to the site as Angkor Wat, but as we have come to find out Angkor Wat is only a single temple in a complex that consists of over 50 different temples and ruins.  Given our limited time we (like most people) have only been able to choose a handful of the more well known spots to explore over 3 days.

We have done a fair amount of research in advance about what the highlights are and have also hired a driver / guide named Theoun who came recommended to us.  I am really happy that we arranged this in advance because we were able to get started straight away without having to try and pick someone once we got here, or worse to try and just do it on our own.

Our first day out we are going to start at 8am and do what they refer to as the ‘small circuit’.  We are actually going to go backwards around the circuit as our guide informs us that we will be going opposite to the large tour buses that we see as we are entering the park.  I am thinking that this is a good thing because the one thing that really puts a damper on this sort of adventure for me is mobs of tourists.  I know this is a little ironic sounding, but I like to be able to step into the space and try to imagine what it was really like when it was built, or the way it was when it was discovered.

I have to admit that all of the reading and internet research that I did before we left only marginally prepared me for what I was about to experience…  The pictures will give some impression of what we are seeing, but there is no way a simple photo can reflect the magnificence these sites deserve.

Our first day includes the sites: Prasat Kravan, Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm, the city of Angkor Thom, and then Angkor Wat.  Ta Prohm is a temple that many people may recognize scenes from as it was used as a location for the Tomb Raider movie.  As was the case with all the temples in this area, they were abandoned around the 14th century and the jungle has now had several hundred years to dominate the land, the result is that up until the early 1900s the sites were completely overgrown with vegetation. There is restoration work being undertaken at most of the temples, but for some like Ta Prohm they are quite concerned about removing the trees because in some places the gigantic tree roots are all that continue to hold the structures up so there is some forced co-existence with man and nature.

Angkor Thom was actually a huge city and the center of the region.  Many of the temples were built inside the walls of the city, and historians estimate that during it’s height in the 1300s over 1 million people lived there.  It is staggering to image that many people living in a ‘city’ without all of our modern infrastructure, but when you stand at some of the temple sites and are dwarfed by the construction you realize that it would have taken that many people to build these monuments without any modern tools / equipment.

Angkor Wat is the most fully restored of the ruins that we will see, and is the calling card of the region.  The temple area is surrounded by an outer wall that encloses the full area of the compound of over 200 acres!!  Inside the outer wall is the distinctive moat that is seen in most pictures – the moat is 190m meters across (almost the length of 2 football fields) and several meters deep, and was completely excavated by hand.  Despite the centuries of conflict in Cambodia’s history the temple was discovered in quite condition and ongoing restoration work has turned it into the spectacle that we end out our day with.

We will have lots of great stores to tell when we get back, and lots more photos to share, but hopefully the ones I was able to upload here will give you a taste of what we are experiencing.  Tomorrow it is an early start at 5am to try and catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat and then ‘the grand loop’ for our 2nd day.

The flights over were quite uneventful and I have to admit that even riding baggage class was not as bad as I was prepared for it to be.  I have to give Mrs Columbus full credit for managing to find what I think was almost the perfect routing.  Our flight left Seattle at 2am so I was able to get right to sleep and with a short layover in Taipei, Taiwan we landed in Bangkok at about 10 in the morning.  We then had about another 90 minute layover in Bangkok and then flew straight to Cambodia.  Given the way that the flight times and layovers worked out we got to Cambodia just after lunch and for me anyway the time seems to have shifted OK and we just carried on like it was a normal day.

We had arranged a guide / driver for our temple explorations before we left and he picked us up at the airport and we went over the agenda for the next few days.  We will be starting at 8am the next day and he left us to explore the town of Siem Reap a bit on our own so that we could unwind a bit from our flights.

We wandered down by the river that runs through the town and got a good a good glimpse of a local man I think trying to catch Mrs. Columbus’ dinner for this evening….  I have to say that even for me the sight of the river would make me think twice about ordering the fish for dinner.

I did manage to top the evening off with a nice 1 hour foot massage 🙂 After all that schlepping around airports it was very relaxing and I am now looking forward to my next bit of research on the quality of the Cambodian massage!

We are off to the temples tomorrow and I am really looking forward to this, I expect it to be a very awe inspiring couple of days.

It will come as no surprise to anyone from around here, but the winter/spring has not been kind to us Seattleites and the last few days of rain has done nothing but reinforce that 🙁   There is however a good cure for this problem and in what seems to now be our standard summer ritual it is off to SE Asia again!

We had made a commitment to Brooklyn for a trip when she graduated, but she decided to ‘bank it’ last summer because of the political situation in Bangkok, but still had her heart set on going back to Thailand and has decided that this is the time to cash it in.   In situations like this it sucks to be a parent, but if I have to suck it up and chaperone her for a few weeks, then I guess that is what parenting is all about.

We are doing a couple of things differently this year to mix it up a bit.  First, I decided to send Mrs. Columbus ahead on her own as sort of an advanced scouting party.  I figure that she can go ahead and get the country all fired back up, because according to her most of the place completely closes down when we are not there.  Second, I am hoping that we will have better internet connections as I am going to try and be much better at getting some photos online and integrated into this blog.  And third, we are going to add a couple of new spots into our travels in addition to going back to a few of our old favorites.

In Thailand we are going to spend some time in Kanchanaburi which is in the ‘central’ area a couple of hours outside of Bangkok.  We did a quick day trip out there a couple of years ago and realized that there was a lot more things to see and do out that way, and that it really needed a few days to scratch the surface.

Of more significance, I have finally convinced the great adventurer herself to give up a few valuable days to visit one of the neighboring countries.  The first stop on our trip will be to go to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat! Ankgor Wat is a world heritage site and a must see in every SE Asia travel guide, and something I have wanted to see for a long time.  I think we could easily spend several weeks exploring Cambodia, but this time we will just pop over to explore the ruins and leave the rest of the country for a future trip.

Brooklyn and I leave shortly and meet up with her cousin Russ who will be joining us again this year, and a paltry 16 hours in transit later we will meet up with Mrs. Columbus who will have certainly gotten the Thais back into shape and the country all opened up in preparation for out arrival.