This is Angkor

Today was my second day in Cambodia. I stayed up late last night at a bar called Warehouse which as it turns out, is the local expat bar which opened in February. The people there are extremely nice and have a lot of knowledge about the area which they were very generous with.

At any rate, for that reason I didn't get up when I thought I would :) I was back out to the temples at 8:00 in the morning. Let me try to describe these temples...

Pick up a pen and start drawing a lot of pictures on the walls of your house. Start in a corner of the living room and just draw small, detailed figures. A completed image should be about 18 inches high and at most, 3 feet wide. You can draw patterns too for decoration, just make sure everything is covered. Oh and make these images the history of your family and the wars in your country. Make all those images blend into each other. Cover every wall, all the floorboards, don't forget the walls inside door openings and don't forget moldings. Don't spare any space and remember, be detailed, no cheating.

Done? Okay now do all the furniture. Do your couch and your chairs, your cabinets and shelves, your table and countertops, your dog dish and your garbage can.

Is EVERYTHING covered?

Step back and look at it... Look at the thousands of images you have drawn. Look at the story they tell, look at all the patterns they make. Look at how the images blur to form a pattern from far away. Look at how much ink is on the wall.

Now here's a chisel. We're going to chisel all those images into stone.

Now we're going to do it to the entire town.

This is Angkor.