Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat and an exterior wall measuring 1300 meters x 1500 meters. The temple itself is 1 km square and consists of three levels surmounted by a central tower.

A view from the exterior wall.

Reaching the inside walls.

 A distant view of the third level of Angkor Wat.

The walls of the temple are covered inside and out with bas-relief and carvings depicting stories and characters from Hindu mythology and historical wars of Cambodia’s king Suryavarman II.

Angkor Wat was initially constructed as a Hindu temple and later on served as a Buddhist temple when Buddhism became Cambodia’s dominant religion. The temple has always been used as a site of prayers and nothing else.

Of all the temples that we visited Angkor Wat was definitely the most majestic of them. 

Kampong Phluk

Tonle Sap Lake

Tonle Sap lake is the biggest lake in Asia and is located in Cambodia.  During the dry season the lake is about 2.5 km2 but expands to 12 000 km2 during the wet season. Water from the Tonle Sap lake normally flows out of the lake towards the Mekong River, however, during the wet season when the Mekong river is inundated with rain waters its lower delta becomes flooded and cannot flow into the sea quickly enough to eliminate all the excess water. This causes the Mekong River to rise enough to reverse the flow and flow back all the way into the Tonle Sap lake and thus creating an enormous wetland area around the lake. This phenomenon supports a huge biodiversity with over 200 species of fishes and many other animal, mammals, reptiles, birds, and plants.

There are many fishing villages around Tonle Sap lake that take advantage of this phenomenon and have build their houses on stilt up to 10 meters high.

Kampong Phluk is one of the village that we visited, as you can see from the pictures, the houses are still high from the water/ground. At the time of our visit the water had only begun to rise and was 4 meters deep in the canal, but by December the whole area will be flooded and the houses will have water close to their floors giving it the appearances of floating on the water.

Navigating between the flooded mangroves was fun and mystical.

Children swimming in the Tonle Sap river, and yes, the water is brown and cloudy…we are really spoiled in Canada with clear and clean water. Everywhere that I have been in Cambodia and Laos the water coming from the Mekong has always been this brownish color.