Angkor WHAT?

Every time I tell people I'd like to go the Cambodia someday and see the Angkor Wat, the first thing they ask is "What are you gonna do there?" And in my mind I say "Duh, I just told you!" But I try to explain better and say, "Well, like I said, I'd like to go and SEE the Angkor Wat.. that's what I'm going to do there." More critical people will dare to ask further, "Yes, but what will you really DO there?" At this point I give up pretending that I'm talking to someone with even just an ounce of historical interest. My brother summed up this general reaction with a very simple question: Angkor What??

But maybe I'm too harsh. I guess not everyone can be awed by ancient structures dating back to more than a thousand years ago. Maybe not everyone can appreciate the wonder and intricacy of bas-relief sculptures. Can you imagine how long it must have taken to sculpt (out of stone!) even one of the millions of figures and pictures scaling the outer and inner walls of the various temples? At the rate we regard sculptors, painters, photographers - artists in general - today, those people, long ago, who carved pictures on stone walls with no help from modern technology, were gods.

And then again, maybe not everyone likes the feeling of realizing that as much as we are each unique individuals, important and powerful in our own right and domain, within the sheer antiquity of these temples, we are but specks of dust in the space and time continuum. At most we live to be a hundred, if we're lucky. By that count, these temples have survived at least 10-12 generations of people being born and dying. We come and go. The temples remain.