In which I climb the thing

     Today I decided to be a tourist. I didn't do very well, because I didn't in fact take many pictures. But, I would like to provide you with an illustrated short story (and by illustrated I mean photographs, sorry guys, I'm no hyperbole and a half) that is about an event that took place during my attempted tourist day. 

I shall call this short story "In which I climb the thing."

To preface the story, I should mention that a large part of my attempted tourist day included a visit to the infamous Angkor Wat. 

Starting now. 

Let's climb the thing!

Yay we climbed the thing! Now let's take a picture from atop the thing!

Now to get down from the thing...

I hope you enjoyed my short story. I shall flourish it now with some pictures of bats, monkeys, and a black elephant. 

60

In which Denver gets a couple points

SUPERBOWL!!!

Nostalgia at its finest. I was rooting for Peyton.....

In other news, I've spent the past 2 weeks in Phnom Penh for IST (in-service training. Yay acronyms!). Peace Corps put us up in this pretty fancy hotel. 

Pool!

We learned lots of stuff. Khmer, diversity, secondary projects, Khmer, tefl stuff, orphanages, and more Khmer. Then, on Friday of the 2nd week, some of us went to Takeo to visit our training host families. 

I didn't tell my family I was coming, so they were a bit surprised. 

And yesterday we watched a possibly illegal version of "Frozen" in Siem Reap. All in all not a bad few weeks. 

In which there be Wats

Themed post! 

Every community in Cambodia has this large complex of buildings, grand and beautiful. They are called Wats, or Pagodas. 

The main temple is where the Buddhism happens.  During high holidays, all the Khmer families go to the wat for various ceremonies. Otherwise, every Sunday the elders go the wat as heads of the families. 

Ceremonies include Pchum Ben, in October, which has bot bai ben, a 4am ceremony that involves throwing sticky rice in baskets. For those who don't want to wake up at 4am, each extended family gets a slot of time to be blessed by the monks during the day. 

Water festival is in November. That has boat races, carnivals with rides and games, and more monk blessings. 

January has Victory over Genocide day, not a religious day, but lots of carnivals in all the wats, (we went to 3-4 wats that week, wat hopping!) and some even had trampolines! 

During rainy season, this drum gets banged every morning, 5am on the dot. Not during dry season. 

Surrounding the main temple are these tombs, that house the ashes of the wealthy families. The ashes of the not so wealthy families go in a large tomb, buried in the ground. 

There are lots of sculptures, and wonderful architecture. 

And inside the temples are detailed paintings of the life of the Buddha. 

Lastly, the grounds have expansive gardens,

Water lily ponds,

Classrooms, and barracks where the monks live,

And lots of other buildings and pretty stuff!!