Will I Make It? – Cambodia blog entry #15

 Afterthat miserable afternoon and evening on Friday, September 21, I woke up at twoa.m. and stretched. The left hip that was causing me so much pain when I wentto bed wasn’t too bad. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Afew hours later I woke up again and once again stretched. I slowly rolled myway over to sit up on the edge of the bed, then tentatively stood up. My hipwas fine. All those tears of pain and frustration that I had been holding backthe night before, thinking I would not make today’s six-hour bus ride andtotally miss seeing the temples at Angkor Wat. Those tears almost spilled outagain, but this time because of thanks and joy.

Godis good, so, so good to me!

Thelong bus ride to Siem Reap went well; the coach bus we rode on was huge andmodern. We got to pick our lunch from a menu of several entrees, then after astop for a potty break and to buy snacks, they served us our meal as the buscontinued rolling into Siem Reap.

Itwas easy to fall in love with the town as soon as we got there. But I’ll writemore about that later. For today’s blog post, I need to write about the nextday.

Wegot up at three a.m. and were picked up by our tuk tuk at 4:30, arriving at ourdestination well before sunrise. The sunrise we never saw because of the heavycloud cover.

Butas day broke over Angkor Wat, the huge and iconic temple complex rose out ofthe dim light.

Imade it! Don’t ever, ever, EVER let anyone tell you to give up on your dreams. Anddon’t ever doubt that God listens to your prayers!

AngkorWat was built by the Khmer king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century. Thetemple was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu and original religious motifs werederived from Hinduism. The temple was dedicated to Buddhism by the wife of thenext king, who encouraged him to convert. After the transformation from a Hinduplace of worship to Buddhism towards the end of the 12th century, Angkor Watcontinues to be a Buddhist center to this day.

AngkorWat is always packed with people when it first opens before dawn. But because it isso big, the crowds disperse enough after a while that it’s not so bad. The perimeter around its outer wall is over two miles, while the moatsurrounding it is over three miles around. Basically,it is really huge.

Butenough of my chatter – here are just a few more pictures, in no particular order.