Angkor Wat(er)

My friend Nate and I spent last weekend climbing and exploring the ancient Khmer city of Angkor (802-1431AD). At its height, Angkor was the pre-imminent civilization in Southeast Asia, controlling land and projecting military power into parts of Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. The Angkor Empire achieved much of its power and wealth through its mastery of hydrology- that is, water. National Geographic had a cover story on the civilization in July 2009. It's well worth the read, plus there are some cool interactive features, too.

Angkor was able to harness the powers of the Monsoon rains, creating run-off basins that would remain full well into the dry season. Through a series of incredibly advanced dams and irrigation canals, Angkor was able to harvest rice up to three times a year (as opposed to the normal one time of most other contemporaneous civilizations). This allowed Angkor to accumulate huge amounts of wealth.

In turn, the rulers of the ancient civilization, who viewed themselves as god-kings, used much of this wealth to construct ancient temples, such as the majestic Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world. The temples at Angkor comprise, in my opinion, the most amazing sites I have ever seen on this earth. That's right, I said it.

So, given this mastery of hydraulics, it was ironic to say the least that the entire town that borders the ancient temples was completely flooded while we were there. Siem Reap was indeed flooded. The temples, with one exception shown above, were dry as could be. In the town center however, there was anywhere from 3-24 inches of water in the streets.

The flooding was caused, not by the French as an Italian friend suggested, but by the heavy rains of Typhoon Ketsana, which absolutely demolished the Philippines a few days prior. Given that we only had to deal with wet feet and gloriously dry temples, we were pretty lucky.