Angkor Wat, Cambodia, JT 7

Last weekend we had our annual Boys Trip. We actually call it 'Jamie's Trip', after our friend Jamie who died in the Bali bombing in 2002. He was one of the founders of this trip back in 2001 when we went for the 1st time.
That first trip was to Lake Toba and since then we have been on 7 trips together.
The boys are Butch (Dorothy), Tom (Slug), Gerardo, Scott, Scotty(Assman) ,Rob (Grandma) and myself

All of these trips have been in Indonesia, but this year we decided to broaden our horizon and we picked Angkor Wat in Cambodia as our destination.

Angkor Wat is supposed to be one of the 7 wonders of the World and is the largest temple complex there is.

The temples are located near the town of Siem Reap.

It was definitely a memorable trip and the whole temple complex is truely amazing. I have seen quit a bit of impressive temples ( Palenque, Chichen Itza, Tikal) , but this one for sure beats the lot.








This was also my first visit ever to Cambodia and probably wont be my last. Siem Reap is a booming town and was surprisingly nice. It has lots of nice restaurants and bars. There are internet cafe's everywhere and it has quality hotels. You can still see the french influences from the old colonial days everywhere.

As soon as you leave the town though the poverty hits you in the face. It's is definitely one of the poorest countries that I have ever seen

Rob and I brought some clothes and toys to hand out and we were almost attacked by desperate kids trying to get their hands on something. They have absolutely nothing! It was sad, but also another good eye opener for us. It makes you realize again how fortunate we and our kids are and how lucky we are that we were born on the other side.....