Angkor

Angkore, meaning capital city is the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia and probably the biggest in South East Asia

Before I came here I had no idea of the size or scale of the place. The most famous temple is Angkor Wat - this is the famous world heritage site. Truly amazing. It was built in the 12th century and is the biggest religious monument in the world. Its inner walls are 1km by 800m surrounded by a large moat. On all of the walls there are carvings, statues and drawings of the most intricate detail they are amazing - so on the outer wall that makes for some 3 km of carvings. There are also thousands of buddhas and hindu carvings. It is fantastic.

But Angkor Wat is only 1 of the temples in the site of Angkor which covers a huge area - 30km wide, packed with fantastic temples. There are a hundred or so that have not yet been fully rediscovered - due to the encroachment of the jungle and the prescence of land mines - indeed this morning we visited a temple called Santeay Samre, which was a red sandstone temple with intricate carvings, and the field next to the car park was only cleared of land mines 2 weeks ago.

I'm a huge fan of English Cathedrals and Castles as they (IMO) show some fantastic architecture. But the scale and design of the temples here really put them to shame. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire from around 800 to 1200 AD. At its peack around 1150 over 1 million people lived here - at this time London had 30,000 people and was largely a wooden town. No amount of descriptive words can explain how fabulous this place is!

We have had 2 days wandering around and the temp has been very hot and sunny, I'm now well into the 4th tube of sun cream - although I've noticed that I seem to be getting a tan on my body and I haven't taken off my top for 2 or more months - makes me think that these clothes that are sold with uv filters may be on to something.

Anyway if you are interested check out the Angkor website or look out for a tv programme as it is really cool.

Off to Bangkok at 09:50 in the morning.