Temple is now called Wat. So Angkor Wat means Angkor Temple. At Ayuthyaya just north of Bangkok we learned that most religious buildings were built in stone as opposed to the teak residences and therefore have survived much longer. This leaves us a wonderful record of the religious history of the region and not alot about everyday life. And, honestly, most of what anyone says is speculation anyway because we simply weren't there.
So, now our spectacular Chedis from Thailand are replaced with a more dome shaped arrangement on top. Khmer Wats are generally patterned in a square with one dome at each of the cardinal directions. At Bayon, there are faces facing each of the cardinals as well. This is quite helpful to us now when we're trying to find our tuk-tuk or motodop driver.
We hiked through about 6 wats today and by the end were rather wated out. I think we actually missed some noteworthy carvings at the last one because we were a little too "big stone / more stone" to notice. There was also a baby cow with its grazing mother which was adorable.
We watched the sunset from the one on the top of the hill. Can't remember the name, too lazy to reach for my book. It overlooks Angkor Wat which catches the sun for a beautiful photo. It was a bit overrun with tourists at the time, Korean, Japanese, Australian, British, German and Khmer that I noticed.
Had dinner at a Khmer restaurant where we watched a puppet show. Very small children worked cutout puppets from behind a lit screen and we watched from the front. I had a curry dish which came in a hollowed out coconut and Tom got beef with Khmer spice. Both delicious and not entirely like but not quite entirely unlike Thai food.
We have been working interchangeably in Thai Baht, US Dollars and Cambodian Riel. 1000 Riel = 0.25 USD. 1000 Riel is the smalled bill we've seen, and you need a truckload of them to buy anything. Often, we'll pay in USD and get Riel back. We find it useful for buying internet as 20 minutes is generally 1000 Riel and we're not travelling with quarters.
Oh, another note for those of you in Ohio, where we flew out of a snowstorm last week. It cools down to about 85F after sunset. We're guessing close to 105 at 1pm - 3 pm. 85F feels cool and comfortable after that.
Liking Cambodia better than yesterday....going to some farther out wats tomorrow and a 3K hike to a carved riverbed.
So, 6 wats in one day.. Does that classify as a POWER WAT? Since a wat = voltage times the current, either each wat was 1 volt, or all the wats together were 3 volts and 2 amps, or...