The traditional houses in Cambodia take inspiration from the historic Angkor empire, religion, and common sense. While most people think they are built on stilts because of a fear of flooding, that is not the case. It’s construction pulls from influences much deeper than that. Recently I had the chance to visit Siem Reap Cambodia to explore the amazing temples of Angkor. You can do this by yourself and hire a tuk-tuk driver to take you around to the temples all day. You read from your guidebook trying to understand the culture and history you are seeing. All the while you are looking for the best place to take a photo. Your other option is to hire a guide who can fill you in on the historical and cultural details while you are free to take in the magnificent surroundings you are in. Plus they know the best places to take photos. I chose the second option. My guide was full of knowledge, not just about the history of Angkor, but was happy to share with me his knowledge of current day Cambodia, and how it blends together. I’m not going to get into the Angkor Temples - that has been done to death. Instead I’d like to share with you an interesting bit of knowledge that he imparted to me, despite me not picking it up the first couple times he mentioned it. As we toured around the various temples in Angkor, my guide kept describing to me that they were built on multiple platforms representing Mount Meru, the home of the Gods in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. He told me about all the different structures figured into the representation of Mount Meru from the mount to the rings to the ascension to the heavens.
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When faced with picking a favorite beach in Thailand, the number of great choices makes for a difficult decision. That’s why we decided to make our list of the top 5 best beaches in Thailand and highlight each one.
While not every beach on the list maybe everyone’s favorite, I’m sure there will be a common consensus on the vast majority of them. We left off a number of the smaller more difficult islands to reach. While they may have some truly beautiful beaches, we wanted to focus on beaches the average tourist could get to for a typical two week vacation in Thailand. We’ve also decided to include one very popular beach resort in Thailand, that doesn’t have the best reputation. However the beach’s available in Pattaya (oops spoiler alert) don’t have great appeal, they do have quick access to a great island nearby which is why they made the list. Without further qualifications let’s have a look at the list. If you are looking for an adventure of a lifetime then you might want to take a look at traveling to Southeast Asia. While you could spend months or years traveling around the several countries that make up the region, most people don’t have that time. We’ve put together our favorite itinerary for 2 weeks in Southeast Asia.
This journey will take you through some of the cultural treasures of two of the most popular countries as well as provide a few options to build your own adventure. We start with the must see highlights of Thailand before moving on to the amazing ruins and history on display in Angkor Wat Cambodia. Of course no trip to South East Asia would be complete without spending a few days at a beautiful beach. We’ve got that covered to, and you’ll be enjoying the powdery white sands, blue tropical waters, and amazing sunsets on this itinerary. |
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