No Sitting On The Balustrade

Oh man! Angkor wat!! So I'm in Siem Reap (I think the coolest sounding name for a city) and went to Angkor wat the past 3 days. When I came here, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard amazing things about Angkor, but that there are too many people, it being one, if not the, most visited tourist attraction in the world. And so was deciding if I wanted to get a 1 day ticket, or 3 days (same price as 2 days) and decided to do 3 per everyone saying how amazing it was. Having already seen Bagan, the valley of 2000 temples, in Myanmar, where there are no people, and that blew my mind, I was expecting Angkor to be similar, but really really touristy. I was totally wrong. I spent all 3 days, with a $1 rented bicycle, by my self exploring all the ruined temples. I can say that it was the kind of fun that changes lives, I loved it! Absolutely, thoroughly, and unconditionally  I am in love with ruins, temples, exploring, and adventure. Life is just the best. My first day, I started with the biggest, and main temple. Angkor Wat. There are a LOT of people. At first, I was totally turned off at how many people, and cameras, and it sucked all the feeling out of seeing one of the most amazing sights you can see. I was walking around, and very soon was overcome with a rebellious urge for disorderly adventure. I took off my shoes, tightened my bag to my back, tied up my pants, and started to climb. I ran past all the people, found a passageway, climbed to the next level. And was alone, exploring back passages, restricted areas, hiding from guards, and feeling like Indiana Jones, and Tomb Raider. This was how my time at Angkor went. Ridding my bicycle to temples near and far, (as far at 37 kilometers away) sneaking past security guards, and enjoying ruin exploration. There's nothing I could imagine being more fun, than clambering over broken Buddha statues and moss eaten stones, hiding from people in ancient Cambodian temples, massive roots of trees swallowing walls and breaking through the ground. Places where the jungle won more often than the building. It was picturesque adventure. My favorite temple, Pareah Kahn melted my heart. It was so beautiful, and so unexplainablely fun to explore. The farther out you get from Angkor Wat, the fewer people there are at the temples. Some you could be the only one. (Or at sunrise there was no one at the far temples, really really nice sunrise) I have no photos how ever. Camera is still dead, and I chose to do the temples alone. Everything in Angkor would have made the perfect photo. It's a small tragedy that I couldn't have any photos. Oh well. So today I rest, tomorrow, maybe I'll start hitch hiking south, or maybe another day in Siem Reap. Who knows. Good bye! And watch out for land mines!