This post was written by students Braden and Nick.

Sunday morning, some of our group woke at 4am to watch the sun rise over the temples of Angkor Wat Archaeological Park in Siem Reap, while the rest of our group stayed at the hotel to rest. By the time we got to the temples, a large mass of people had already arrived and many of them were also there to view the sunrise and take pictures. The weather didn’t exactly cooperate with us — instead of an ideally clear morning sky, we got a cloudy one, though it was still amazing to see the temple.

After a few sunrise photos, we visited three more temples. First we visited Ta Prohm, a very beautiful temple famous for two reasons: (1) besides just being a cool temple, many of the structures have trees growing out of them, and (2), one of the Tomb Raider movies was partially filmed there. We toured the temple and were struck by how much construction was going on to restore it. It’s nice to know that the government is taking the time to make sure that such a cool place is being saved for the future.

Next we visited Bayon, which is famous for the number of faces around the temple. Our tour guide told us a story about a group of girls who came from New Zealand and hid in the temple until dark, then damaged and destroyed part of the temple. As we headed to the next temple, we saw some elephants and monkeys along the road. Next we visited the Terrace of the Elephants, which was used by the king of the time to view his victorious army returning from battle. Much of the temple terrace has long since disappeared because it was mostly made of organic materials, yet some still remains. There are numerous stone carvings of elephants along the base of the terrace.

Finally, we returned to Angkor Wat to take an official tour of the temple. As we got closer to the temple, we realized just how immense it actually is and how much time and work went into building it. When we entered the temple, our guide brought us over to a wall that had a relief of a large battle scene between Rama and Ravana (two beings competing to rule the mythical Hindu kingdom of Lanka) — Rama won this battle. Angkor Wat, a true feat of human ingenuity since the temple was built in the early 12th century, was one of the greatest things we’d ever seen in our entire lives. After visiting the temples, we headed back to the hotel and rested.

Monday morning, we all gathered to go zip lining in Angkor Park. The zip line was called Flight of the Gibbon. As we prepared and put our harnesses on, we saw some gibbons near the main building. They are the smallest of the apes. Our zip lining adventure consisted of ten zip lines, the longest being three hundred meters from tree to tree. We were at least fifteen meters up in the trees the entire time and the experience was breathtaking! One of our guides, named Hul, was funny and talkative, and he informed us about the local environment. Hul certainly made the experience more enjoyable for the group.

Later that afternoon, we headed to the temple near our hotel, Wat Bo. There we met some local monks, learned about Buddhism, and watched a temple full of monks do their afternoon prayer. Once they were done, we tried it ourselves, led by the two monks that we met. After we finished the prayer, one of the monks blessed us all with holy water and wished us safe travels.

That evening we went to the Phare circus show, where many of the graduated circus students from Phare in Battambang go to become professional performers. The story behind the show was that of a girl whose family members were killed during the Cambodian genocide and how she found strength through art. The performance also included an artist and musicians whose paintings and music were incorporated into the production. The show as a whole was spectacular. We could really tell the difference between the students and the professionals — many of the stunts we saw were bigger and more complicated than the school’s. After the performance, we went back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, we woke, had breakfast, and boarded the bus at 8am. Once we got back to the hotel in Phnom Penh, we worked on our individual projects, then ate dinner at a really delicious Indian restaurant.

Stay tuned!
Braden and Nick