Angkor Wat Temples, Cambodia

3 years ago, I was living in a much warmer, much more humid place. 🙂 I studied abroad in Cambodia for the month of January when I was a junior in college. Living in Cambodia was one of the most amazing, overwhelming, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, challenging, and phenomenal months of my life.

Our prof told us that we’d not only be processing everything when we were dumped right back into life in the U.S., but in the years to come…and she couldn’t have been more right. I feel as if so much of my experience is still deep within me – in hidden corners of my mind, in poignant memories that startle me in the middle of the work day… Maybe my mind feels it finally has the room to breathe and reflect upon it. Maybe I even needed this step back, more time to process? I don’t know. In any case, I’ve finally decided it’s time to blog about Cambodia – time to share about this experience that has impacted me much more than I realized.

I’ve begun the long process of combing through the hundreds of photos and editing them (three cheers for having a teacher’s summer!!). Giving each picture a “new life” has been so much fun! Today I’m excited to share with you our excursion to the Angkor Wat Temples in Siem Reap. This temple complex was built in the 12th century and is the biggest religious monument in the world. I had heard of the Angkor Wat Temples while I was growing up so I was especially looking forward to seeing them!

Note: our time in Cambodia was not a mission trip – nor was it strictly sightseeing. Our university course was called “Issues & Praxis in Christian Social Justice,” so our month in Cambodia had an emphasis on visits to local nonprofit or human aid organizations.

Today’s snapshots: time spent at the largest of the temples, specifically named “Angkor Wat”

We rose very early, our alarms blaring at us in our dark hotel rooms. When we stepped outside, the day was already heating up and the humidity formed a familiar cloud around us. Phnom Penh’s streets were already filling with traffic – dogs were barking, construction workers were pounding hammers, and “moto”s whizzed by. The bus we loaded was a bit rickety-looking with brightly colored upholstery on the seats (see the reflection in the mirror)! We joked that the bus was from “That 70s Show” and, yawning, settled in to do a big chunk of our assigned reading on the 6-hour drive.

Our bus lurched and creaked as we whizzed past storefront after storefront, until we reached the outskirts of the city. And then, I got my first glimpses of life in various villages – laundry hung in yards, children playing barefoot and curious…

My fascination with this culture – with LIFE – grew and grew. I had always been obsessed with the human experience, and here we were passing home after home of people’s lives. This was where they grew up, where they slept, where they played – and I had only a millisecond, a blurry snapshot from a bus, to process this fact. Each home we passed was a world so different, so complex, just feet from me – yet we hurtled on.

We eventually had to stop for fuel – and children, tall and short, serious and giggling, ran up to sell us fruit. 

On the road again, we passed rice paddy after rice paddy – and in these moments frozen in time on my camera – I remember, I feel, the ache to know each person’s story.

We arrived at the main gates for sign-in and our passes with pictures – I blinked. 🙂

And just like that, there we stood, noisy tourists, hot sun, dusty paths, temples and monkeys peeking out from the forests around us. The time had come to explore and we were given free reign. Where to start? 

I’ll let the rest of the pictures narrate themselves. 🙂

 

More posts about Cambodia are coming soon!!

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