Day Twenty Eight: Tomb Raider

Day Twenty Eight February 18th, 2009
Siem Reap and Angkor

The familiar jingle made by my alarm came much too early today. Our guide was going to picking us up at five am so that we could make it to Angkor Wat before sunrise. Outside was still dark as night. Only as we walked past the ticket line into the complex could I fully appreciate getting up that early as five am has more recently been bed time rather than time to rise. In the dark, I could see the small round light of a thousand flashlights of the hundreds of other visitors that had cut their sleep short to see the Wat as it says hello to a new day. We first walk down a large stone bridge that crosses the moat surround this ancient temple. Stepping through the entry way I think to myself what life must have been for the inhabitants of this area during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. With only the light of fire to lead them in the early morning I can feel the magic of this site. There is a certain quietness to the massive structure even though I am surrounded now by flashlights pointed to the ground. After the first entry we now stake out a place to enjoy our packed breakfast and wait for the sun to illuminate the temple.
The entire city of Angkor was built over thousands of years from 802 a.d. to 1432 a.d. An impressive irrigation system allowed for large production of rice and other fresh foods thus sustaining a large population. During the course of the day we visited three different sites encompassing many acres of land all with beautifully carved temples.
Later that afternoon, we drove outside of the village and to Tonle Sap Lake, the largest body of fresh water in S.E. Asia. The lake is feed by the Mekong, a large river system that flows from southern China through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before it enters the South China Sea near Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon.) Each wet season the lake swells and the size of the lake doubles or triples.
Once we reached the lake we hopped on a long thin boat for a journey to a floating village nearby. As we go, we pass by many houseboats, a floating school with floating playground as well as markets and hundreds of fishing boats. The lives of these people are dependent on the rise and fall of the lake and the Mekong. As the water level rises and falls, the villagers continue to hug the bank of the river.