Eiji Nakamura 中村榮治: Angkor, Cambodia, vol 1 アンコール遺跡、カンボジア

Ruins of Angkor are the Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction, located near Siem Reap city.

Many ruins of Angkor were hidden in the forest, covered by trees.

I took a 5days trip to Angkor,Cambodia, last month. Angkor was one of the place I always wanted to visit. Cambodia was not accessible country until they ended their 20years of civil war in 1990.
So, I think we are very fortunate to be able to visit there and see the part of ancient history with our own eyes.

Smiling Hotel in Siem Reap

View from the balcony (left), Swimming pool (middle), Appearance of the hotel (right)

I was staying at Smiling Hotel, one of the four star hotels in Siem Reap City.

The hotel is not located in the downtown Siem Reap but there is a local market next door (if you like to explore and try some local food), the room was very clean, decent breakfast buffet and free Wi-Fi in every rooms and the lobby. That was good enough for me.

One thing though, there was a blackout for a few minutes, every night around 10pm! But it was nothing to do with the hotel, it was not only in the hotel, seems like whole town gone blackout every night...

There are a couple of five star hotels in Siem Reap City. One is Sofitel and other is Le Meridien.

Both located next to each other and also a bit far away from downtown.

I also saw a sign of Park Hyatt going under construction. They made an agreement with Hotel De La Paix, rebrand and renovate the hotel, supposed to be opening in fist quarter 2013.

Tonle Sap, "Large fresh water river" or simply "Great Lake"

First day of the tour started from "Tonle Sap", a great lake. Half an hour drive, straight from the airport, we arrived the lake. It is a huge lake, more like an ocean, just something wrong with the color of water.

The color of the water, as you can see from the pictures, was brown... It's not clean, obviously. People live there and do all the things necessary for their lives, from excretion to washing their clothing with same water from the lake... though they do have a water purification system in place for their food and drink.

Well, important thing is no matter what the circumstances are, people seem to enjoy their lives. Not much stress, totally relaxed. The lake support their lives with water and fish. They don't need to worry about food. They can also easily move around with the houses/boats, depending on the season.

Houses on the river bank (left),

A boy with an aluminium bowl, using it as a boat (right)

People have their life in "mobile" house

Over one million people live in floating villages around the lake(left, middle),

They even have shops and schools for their children (right)

From the 2nd day to 4th day of the 5days tour, focus on the ruins of Angkor. Everyday from morning to late afternoon, there are a lot to see...

Angkor Tom, Angkor Wat, Ta Keo and so on... walked a lot in hot days except 4th day, rained in the morning, but all of them were spectacular sites. As you may know from the movie "Lara Croft", those temples and palaces are amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately, most of them are heavily damaged because they have been abandoned for long time during the war time... but somehow the abandoned buildings and the forest are in a good harmony and keep attracting people's eyes and hearts.