Today we went to Angkor Wat with a couple that we met on our epic trip into Cambodia. Angkor is a series of temples built about 1000 years ago that were unknown to the world until teh French "discovered" them in the late 1800s. They were covered by the jungle and no one really understood how huge the site was. Now there is a 27-km road that surrounds the dozens of temples. The most well-known is the site's namesake: Angkor Wat. We decided that we will work our way up to seeing the main temple, so we started with some of the smaller ones. We bought a 3-day pass and hired a local guy named Luck to drive us there in his tuk tuk. He gave us a great deal on a price for him to hang around the temples all day, taking us from place to place. The distances between sites are huge and the weather is unbelievably hot, especially in the midday. We saw some amazing buildings, most of which you can still climb up onto and explore through. There are many carvings on the outside of the buildings and our guide book describes some of them, so it was neat trying to find the carving of a gargantuan fish eating an antelope or the women selling fish in the market. Emma and Joe are the people we're with and they were really into it too, which was nice. We met lots of cute kids trying to beg for money, but most of them were content learning a secret handshake or getting a high five. One of the funniest moments of the day was when we were coming back to find Luck when we saw a monkey on his tuk tuk. We were hoping to get photos, but the little guy heard us coming, grabbed the fuzzy dice that Luck had hanging in his covered tuk tuk and he climbed a tree! Luck was not very happy, but I thought it was hilarious. How often is it that you're in Cambodia and your guide's fuzzy dice get stolen by a monkey?! Not very often, I'm thinking. Poor Luck, he tried and tried to make the monkey drop his toy, but he was not letting go. A really neat temple that we saw today has been sort of taken over by trees in the surrounding jungle. Their roots have grown over entire walls and it look as though someone planted the trees right into the top edge of the wall. We took a million photos; hopefully we'll get a chance to post them soon. Tomorrow we're back to the sites for sunrise (ouch) and to spend another day. The next day we'll sleep in a bit, head to the main temple (Angkor Wat) and then witness the sunset. Keep your fingers crossed that it's a good one! So far, Angkor has been really amazing. It's the first thing in a while that has really taken our breath away. Although, the fireworks surrounding us on the beach in Phuket was pretty breathtaking too! At first we were unsure about getting back onto the backpacker trail, but I think that we both agree that Siem Reap and Angkor are totally worth it. After Angkor, we'll head to Pnohm Penh for ?? days. We leave for Japan on the 3rd. Right now we're scheduled to land in Canada in less than a month! Can you believe it? We can hardly wait to see everyone again... :) m&j