Angkor Wat.

Rules at Angkor Wat.

The architecture is fabulous, of course, but the frosting on the cake is the art inside, outside, up and down and around---everywhere.

Inside a hall in Angkor Wat.

A nice young couple from Shanghai took our picture with our camera and we took their picture with their camera!

Angkok literally means "Capitol City" or "Holy City", Khmer refers to the dominant ethnic group in modern and ancient Cambodia. In it's modern usage, "Angkor" has come to refer to the capital city of the Khmer Empire that existed in the area of Cambodia between the 9th and 12 centuries AD, as well as to the empire itself. The temple ruins in the area of Siem Reap are the remnents of the Angkorian capitals, and represent the pinnacle of the ancient Khmer architecture, art and civilization.

At the height, the Age of Angkor was a time when the capital area contained more than a million people when Khmer kings constructed vast waterworks and grand temples and when Angkor's military, economic and cultural dominance held sway over the area of modern Cambodia as well as much of Thailand.

The above was copied from a visitor guide, Siem Rap Angkor.

It is awsome, impressive...I am at a loss of words really, to describe what we saw today. Fantastic, I am so glad we came here and saw what we saw. I'll post a few more pictures then we're heading out for dinner.

Wat? ANOTHER Wat? Angkor Wat that is, the Grandaddy of them all.

The entrance to the main temple. Today was a holiday (National Human Rights Day) so there were many Cambodians out, which was nice to see. Probably first on the list would be large groups of Japanese tourists. We often had to wait for entire groups of them to take their pictures and move on before we could get the pictures we wanted. It is such a large place though that finally we went off in different directions so we didn't have much problem with them.

The moat around Angkor Wat.