Monday, August 23, 2010

Cambodia, Angkor Wat Day 2

Today I got an e-mail from my dad which said:
ALEX
DID WE MISS A POST?

(And yes, he really does do everything with the caps lock on.)
 Back to Cambodia! I really appreciate everyone's support while I was moping away. I'm feeling better, and teaching really helps keep my spirits up. Having kids write scenes with lines like "OH MY GOD, it's blood!" is always good for a laugh.

For the second day at Angkor, we got up at 4:30 and left the guest house at 5 so we could watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Unfortunately, my camera is great at capturing sunsets but I couldn't get the setting perfect for sunrises. I really wish I'd consulted my mother on the proper manual setting the day before but such is life. It was still breathtaking. We also ran into some other acquaintances from Korea but I was too busy snapping pictures and oohing over the pretty to really want to talk.  It just goes to show how small the world is sometimes.
There are many reasons why Angkor Wat is so popular among all of the temples. For one, it's absolutely immense. It is also in amazingly good shape, particularly the bas reliefs (wall carvings).  There are hundreds of meters of them and each wall tells a story.
Angkor Wat is easy to get lost in (and I did). Note to future travelers: your Lonely Planet guide is not sufficient to get you around Angkor.
I could post every picture I took of Angkor Wat and it still wouldn't do it justice.
...because sometimes I get bored of smiling and victory signs.

More tomorrow!

4 comments:

Nancy K said...

Beautiful pictures. These photos are tricky to take with a small digital camera. Taking them at different exposures, bracketing it's called can help you get the exposure you are looking for .

Nancy K said...

Can you send me a high res picture of you sitting on the steps please?

Alex said...

Thanks and will do!

(I did try different 'scene settings' but I think I really need to play around with the manual settings more.)

Josh said...

i LOVE the last picture