Ancient and modern--Siem Reap

The car we are leasing from the Church needed to be serviced, so we went to Siem Reap last week since that is where the closest Ford dealer is located.  Siem Reap is also the tourist city near the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex. So while our car was in the shop we hired a tuk tuk and a guide and visited one of the amazing wonders of the world.  Here are a few of the over 300 pictures that we took. There are several temples built in the area. Because of our time limitation, we were only able to visit two of them.

This is one of the six libraries that have been identified on the Angkor Wat grounds (and our guide.)

This is a view of the main Angkor Wat temple. I love this picture because of the cleansing ponds. There are several baptismal type basins. 

There are 1800 Apsara dancers carved on the walls of the Temple. They are considered to be angels. 

These ubiquitous patterns represent lotus flowers, a symbol of purity and holiness.  Beautiful lotus flowers grow out of mud, reflecting the human ability to grow out of worldliness into purity.

We climbed to the top of this uppermost part of the temple where, anciently, only the king and priests were allowed. It was a beautiful view of the temple grounds and the surrounding countryside.

The second temple we visited is the one that Lara Croft visits in the movie "Tomb Raider". Huge fig trees, like the one in the background here, are overgrowing the structures. (That is not Lara Croft in the foreground.)

Above is a detail of one of these trees.

A parting shot of Angkor Wat across the surrounding moat. We will be back!