merlin
Member
- Location
- Saint Petersburg Russia
Lisa and I spent a month in January in Vietnam and Cambodia; we found both countries fascinating and the people in general very kind, helpful and gentle, particularly the Cambodians.
We stayed in family run guest houses and “Homestays” where you live with the family in their home, so you get to know the people and their culture a lot better.
One of the highlights of the trip was “Angkor Wat” in northern Cambodia; the area consists of a complex of ancient temples, Hindu and Buddhist, mainly built during the 12[SUP]th [/SUP]and 13[SUP]th[/SUP] centuries.
We spent a week going around many of the temples, and though busy with tourists during the early part of the day, when we revisited them in the evening they were deserted and the atmosphere was amazingly calm and tranquil.
It’s hard to reconcile all this peace and beauty with the horrors of the more recent history the country endured.
Corruption is rife there and evidently a third of the people live on less than a dollar a day, but on the whole to us (a tourists view of course), they came across as being much happier than a lot of us in the west who have generally so much more, in a physical sense.
Here are a few photos of the sites we visited.
We stayed in family run guest houses and “Homestays” where you live with the family in their home, so you get to know the people and their culture a lot better.
One of the highlights of the trip was “Angkor Wat” in northern Cambodia; the area consists of a complex of ancient temples, Hindu and Buddhist, mainly built during the 12[SUP]th [/SUP]and 13[SUP]th[/SUP] centuries.
We spent a week going around many of the temples, and though busy with tourists during the early part of the day, when we revisited them in the evening they were deserted and the atmosphere was amazingly calm and tranquil.
It’s hard to reconcile all this peace and beauty with the horrors of the more recent history the country endured.
Corruption is rife there and evidently a third of the people live on less than a dollar a day, but on the whole to us (a tourists view of course), they came across as being much happier than a lot of us in the west who have generally so much more, in a physical sense.
Here are a few photos of the sites we visited.
