Angkor Wat again,

There was some serious stair climbing involved in visiting some of the temples at the complex.  Serious stair climbing, thigh burning, pulse rate raising, sweat inducing climbing that was not for the faint of heart.  Proud to announce that our crowd climbed them all.  To the top.  Some of us even went on top of the tops.  Good times — would have driven US guards and park rangers absolutely nuts.

and if they did not film Indiana Jones here, they could have.  By the way, Mark and I went through that temple.  At one point I knew the name of this one, at the moment it escapes me.  A lot of the names do, so I will forgo naming them today in a future blog I hope to name some and do some detail — stay tuned — for now mostly photos.

The temples often had walls and halls around them — at the various levels going up towards the top.

Some of the halls were in good repair or had been repaired.  Various nations were undertaking leadership (and I assume financing) for restoration of various of the temples.  We saw China, Japan, Czech Republic and Germany's activities.

A long causeway to one of the temples that would have crossed a moat.

 and Elephants at the "Elephant Wall".

Can you see the elephants in relief?  Carved into the wall.

It is a long wall and there are a lot of elephants.

Heck even Mark found the elephants.

Some of the traffic at the elephant wall, could have been in front of many of the sites.  Lots of traffic, visitors and languages, and vendors of t-shirts, post cards, paintings, handbags, drinks, you name it.

and we ran across a few images of one of the Kings too.  He liked himself as they were everywhere. These were I think at Bayon — probably spelled wrong, one of the famous temples and crowded ones too.

and there were more of the Buddahs, though there were some Vishnu statues and other gods too.  Not real choosy at times in the 800 AD to 1500 AD period of this time in Cambodian history.  To put it in western history time, it was Dark Ages through Crusades and into early explorers of the Portuguese.

Some of the temple mounds were quite high as here we are above the tops of the trees, some measure of meters high.  We use meters here, not feet and so I do not know how high we were.

See that Second building on the causeway in the middle of the picture, the one that is somewhat small.  We had breakfast there one morning, early, very early.  It was quite nice.

As I mentioned we often felt like Indiana Jones.  Many places had that feel.

Angkor Wat

If that looks like an Angkor Wat like statute it would be because it is.  And there are thousands spread over thousands of acres and I do not exaggerate one bit.  This place is huge.  Really big is another way of putting it and a person can get up rather close on these ancient buildings in a way that in the US would be prohibited due to preservation  of antiquities and due to safety.  

Also it is impossible to exaggerate the crowds here and the numbers of countries represented.  Amazing.  Mark, Marie, Patt, Linda and Kate are in there somewhere.

Some of the inner walls of "the" Angkor Wat had amazing engravings still on the walls, others had deteriorated badly or completely disappeared.

Some places mostly empty.

Some place pretty crowded.

love the hard hat and "safety" shoes.

and they have a lot of work to do, many many pile of stones as many temples have fallen.

Patt, Mark and Marie are making a climb up one of the temples.   There were several high ones with very steep climbs.

and our transportation while we are in Siem Riep.  These are everywhere.  Of course so are bicycles, motorcycles, busses and cars.

very slow internet has made bloging difficult, hope to do another here but not sure.  will do more about Angkor so sure later.

Malaysia and it is very nice too

That would be Kate, in Linda's and Charles's kitchen, well mostly Linda's though I did see Charles washing a few dishes, so I guess scullery help gets some credit. So that puts us in Penang. and Mark and Marie made it. Their matching outfits are courtesy of Charles loaning Mark a shirt as Mark forget to have Delta forward one of his many bags so he was reduced to borrowing clothing from his older brother.  Some things never change. 

   Here Charles and I are chuckling over the travails of the younger set.

The Malaysians on the esplanade in old Georgetown. And it is hot so think those from northern climes.

The bungalow home of an 18th century wealthy Chinese merchant and still in good shape.
He did well for himself.

We drove out to the north end of the island to a fishing pier, (not like one at Oak Island).

 Boats with Malaysian flags-in case you do not know your flags.

I was fascinated by the boats, as was Patt, who took most of the photos in this blog,

One boat was a flurry of activity and had several crew working on cleaning it.

The long narrow pier the boats were tied to.  Perhaps 100 yards long- five feet wide.

The car smelled like fish when we got back in after being on the pier.  Never did quite figure out why.

And the Floating mosque, quite serene and peaceful.  

We are looking forward to hearing "call to prayers" .

Charles, Linda and Kate have kept us on a wonderful schedule and full of great meals, entertainment and interesting sights, sounds and smells.  Lunch was a fabulous fancy meal in a treehouse type restaurant overlooking the ocean consisting of ta-da, Thai food — guess who about foundered.  That would have been us as we put on the ole feedbag.  Then for evening fare we went to street food city, again overlooking the sea, just over Mark's shoulder to the right, had Korean, Japanese, and Thai again.  Penang is a known food destination.  Like one should come here just to eat.

and have a small bottle of beer while you are here.  Mark is about to finish off this bottle of Tiger.  Add in a little jet lag and he is a hoot.