This was one of the highlights of the entire trip. We flew into Siem Reap and spent a couple of days exploring the temples around Angkor Wat. While the main Angkor Wat temple was impressive, I enjoyed a couple of other temples even more: the Bayonne Temple, with the massive faces carved into the stone blocks, and Ta Phrom, part of the Angkor Thom complex that was overgrown by massive trees and only recently reclaimed from the jungle. I even got to ride an Asian elephant around the Bayonne Temple! I definitely want to go back to this area at some point in the future. I suspect that the area will change significantly over the next decade as the economy develops. The country has clearly made great strides in recovering from the days of Pol Pot and the “killing fields”.