CAMBODIA TRIP 2005

When Jenn and I decided to go to Cambodia we did so under the task of making it a photographic vacation.

We armed ourselves with all our lenses, camera bodies and tonnes of negative and slide film as well as our digital camera. We were not blessed with a digital SLR at the time so most of the images were scaned. This is how we started every morning in Cambodia

4 AM departure from our hotel to catch the sunrise seen here at Angkor Wat, the most famous Wat in the Angkor complex.

We really couldn't digest how much detail went into carving these stones ...

and literally EVERY stone you looked at was uniquely carved.

In addition to the the detail of the stone carving is the absolute vastness of the Angkor complex. It was once a massive city spreading over 10s of square kilometers with millions of inhabitants.

Briliant orange of the Buddist Monk's robs could be seen flowing through every ruin. The ruins are believed to have a religious history. For those who don't konw, Cambodia suffered many years through civil war and perhaps some of the least humane times in recent history. This has left Cambodia far behind in many respects even when compared to their close neighbours.

Take, for example Cambodia's version of - the local bus AKA pickup truck - 7-Eleven run by a 5 year old boy - Our taxi and driver coming across the bridge - A family wagon(look closely at the whole family riding the motor bike) All pictured below and you'll see what I mean. But Cambodia is lush in many other ways. Take the enormous snail we found while walking through the ruins, it was by far the biggest snail I have ever seen in my life. Or the friendly monkeys that congregated around a fire ant hill (Look at the shot where I am hitting my leg, that's when I found out about the fire ants). And the HUGELY gentle elephants that Jenn really wanted to bring home.

Below is a picture of a ruin site that was meant to be dismantled, numbered, catalogued and reassembled after the earth, which was erroding, had been reinforced. Unfortunatly this process began before the civil war and all the documentation to reassemble the ruins was destroyed and the pieces still lay on the ground numbered and waiting to be put back in place.

So that is a little bit of what we saw and recorded on film from Cambodia. Let me leave you with another gorgeous shot of my wife and a charming picture of myself and some elephant droppings.