Over the centuries, looting of an epic scale has taken place at all of the temples. Most of the buddha statues have been taken in their entirety. Of the ones that remain, the vast majority have had only their heads stolen.

There was a tour guide nearby when i came upon these buddhas. i asked him how old they were and he tells me, öh, these aren't the old ones. These are from the 16th century." I guess it's all relative.

This was one hell of a steep and slightly scary climb to the upper portions of Angkor Wat, but well worth the views and being closer to the main towers to truly appreciate their scale. After climbing back down, myself and a german lady exchanged commentary on the various styles people had while descending. It was pretty funny to watch. I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of chinese and korean tourists, of their "holy shit this is way scarier going down"expressions.

Wedding party outside of the temple.

My eyes were sweating.

This is just a tiny section of the carvings on the wall that surrounds Angkor Wat. There are over 2400 feet of them, it is truly mind blowing. This section shows people being judged and going to either heaven or hell. This is a scene from hell where the demons inflict torture on people. The figures are a shiny black from millions of fingers touching them over the centuries.

Outside of the major temples are tons of food stalls and souveneir (sp?) stands. Manning all of these are tons and tons of children. And they are renlentless in their sales tactics. First they ask you if you want to buy "cold drink." From there it quickly progresses to bracelets, 10 postcards for $2-which quickly drops to$1, scarves, books, flutes, mouth harps, etc. After many no's from me, they ask where you are from. Giving the answer, they proceed to tell you your state's capital city, population, name of the president, ending with "now you buy!" After a "no," they'll ask you the captial of Madagascar. I told them I didn't know, and they told me "Because you not know, you buy!" I eventually caved and bought some bracelets from one of the little girls. Within 5 seconds of the money exchange, a different little girl who was trying to sell me things earlier came running over saying, ÿou told me no, and now you buy from her!" all the while i'm sitting there eating my fried noodles. after a while, i got them talking about school and their families and they chilled out on the sales pitches. the little boy on the left gave his farewell to me like this. "Bye bye, nice to meet you. I go home now and my mom kill me cause you no buy." They even wanted to charge me for taking their photo.