Despite its abandonment for many centuries, Angkor Wat is now firmly entrenched as Cambodia's national symbol, and occupies the center of the Cambodian flag. In 2003, it also touched off one of those incredibly stupid international incidents that seem to happen all the time in Asia. A Thai actress was reported to have said that Angkor Wat actually belongs to Thailand. Now, of course she said no such thing as everyone eventually agreed, and even if she had, she's hardly in a position to set Thai foreign policy. All it took was the rumor that this was said, and the Cambodians went wild, burning down Thai owned banks, hotels and other businesses in Phnom Penh, the capital, laying seige to the embassy while mobs wandered the streets looking for Thais to lynch. The Thai navy had to come in to rescue the remaining Thais and for a while it looked like war would erupt, all because of a fake rumor of a comment by an actress.

Being a Hindu temple originally it comes with a very complicated religious system behind it. For better or worse, we had a very knowledgeable guide with us. He went through every detail of every carving at a very rapid clip in a clearly memorized speech, but was really thrown off if you asked a question which caused him to deviate from the prepared remarks. I think we were the first group to ask him questions since his prepared speech delivered in a monotone ran to about twenty hours, which is probably enough for most tourists. He loosened up some at dinner, although where we really threw him was when Reza tried to explain that Somchai and I were gay. He never believed it since he kept saying gays had to be wearing dresses, so I don't know what he's making of Siam Reap's gay bar now.

Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century as a Hindu temple, like most of the Siam Reap temples. It was then populated with Buddhas in the 13th century, then the Buddhas were hacked up by a subsequent Hindu king, then partially restored as the country permanently became Buddhist. What the Hindu king didn't desecrate treasure hunters carted off after it was rediscovered, so the overall aesthetic is of a Hindu temple decorated with headless Buddhas. The very general idea is that the tower complex at the center of the temple is supposed to be Mount Meru, where the Hindu gods reside, and then the city was organized around this base.

The temples, and in fact the whole area, is commonly called Angkor Wat, although that's only the largest of the many temples. (As an aside, the real town name of Siam Reap translates into something like Destroy the Thais, which is very welcoming.) Siam Reap served as the capital of the Cambodian empire from the 900's, although different kings built different cities/palaces/temples in the same general area, which accounts for the huge spread of ruins at the site today. The site was abandoned either because it was destroyed by the Thais, or because it ran out of water, and was left to fall apart in the jungle, which, as you'll see later gives some great Indiana Jones/Lara Croft type pictures. In the 19th century a French explorer stumbled across it, and Siam Reap's tourism boom got underway.