After seeing hundreds and hundreds of temples in the past months in India, Burma, Thailand, and Nepal it was time for me to visit one of the most famous temple sites in the world—the Angkor temples in Cambodia. These amazing ruins of Angkor are spread out around forests and farmland in northern Cambodia. While some of the temples have been restored and renovated to show what they once looked like, others have been left in a state close to when they were rediscovered—surrounded by jungle with trees growing in, around, and through the ruins. The temples have received a spot in recent pop culture as they are featured in the Tomb Raider movies as well as a few other recent movies.

Angkor Wat is considered to be the most famous of the buildings included in the ruins, and is the largest religious monument in the world. Unfortunately, all the fame of these temples and ruins has lead to an unbelievable amount of tourism and tour groups walking through the ruins. This necessitated a lot of early mornings to avoid the crowds as much as possible, however even when doing so there were still 1000+ people every morning for sunrise at Angkor Wat. Aside from the overwhelming presence of hoards of other tourists, exploring the ruins was a very fun and rewarding experience and it was nice to see a lot of the places I’ve seen pictured so many times.

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