Angkor Wat

A local tuk tuk driver saw me riding a bike around in the Temples of Angkor and laughed. "Tomorrow, I drive you?" he asked. "No thanks," I said. "But it's a long way." I wiped a few tablespoons of sweat from my brow, "Nope."

It was awesome. I've been to plenty of temples in China and now Thailand, enough to know that I prefer John Muir's cathedrals to brick and mortar buildings. But the Temples of Angkor, the crown jewel of Cambodia, are more than buildings. When was the last time you got a workout in church? This was an adventure.

Cruising through the vast grounds, I had to marvel at the scale of this place. Every one of the many temples I visited would have been a site worth seeing on it's own.

And nature was at the heart of them all. Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious building, is a sandstone representation of Mt. Meru, home of the ancient Hindu gods.

But the feeling of a nature experience didn't end there. This was a bike ride through the jungle. I knew I was going to have a good time when I had to swerve my bike to avoid hitting a monkey.

The temples themselves are evidence of the jungle's power. They're still standing after a millennium, but they have, in many ways, become a part of the jungle. Trees have grown on top of them, displacing stones with roots over hundreds of years. Moss carpets many of the bass relief carvings (Angkor Wat has 800 meters of bass relief--umm WHAT?)

Although an international team has restored many of the temples to something resembling their pre-jungle state, it's the wildness of being here that makes this place a wonder. And, yes, you can bike the whole thing. My new friend Lara and I proved it. Take that, Mister Tuk Tuk Driver.