Angkor Wat, Better When It Rains

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  11.08.07 | 1:30 PM ET

imageWhen writer Stephen Brookes told friends he planned to visit Cambodia’s Angkor Wat in July—the height of monsoon season—they said he was crazy. “You’re certain to get stranded in your hotel, swatting at mosquitoes and hoping you don’t come down with malaria,” came the general response. Well, Brookes and his wife proved them wrong. In a story for the Washington Post, Brookes recounts a lovely trip to Angkor in the off-season, when costs are low, tourists are sparse, and visitors can take in the temples at their leisure.

He writes:

Because the truth is, even though it rains almost every day—sometimes in torrents so thick you can barely see—it rarely lasts more than an hour or two. And the effect is usually refreshing. The rain clears the air, washes away the dust and cools down everything. The landscape turns lush and fragrant, colors take on richer hues and, instead of scorching tropical sun, you get constantly changing light and spectacular sunsets. For photographers in particular, it’s the only time to go.

With 1.7 million tourists stampeding through Angkor last year—most of them from November through April—rainy season travel in the region may have a bright future.

I can certainly vouch for rainy season travel to Bali, where I spent a relaxing week last February. As in Angkor, it poured for an hour so in the afternoon; the rest of the day was spectacular. The rice fields were so green it almost hurt to look at them; and I saw several religious processions unfold around Ubud, unrecorded by whirring cameras.

Like Brookes, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Related on World Hum:
* New Discoveries at Cambodia’s Angkor
* Wanted: Cambodian Noodle Joint in New York
* The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love

Photo by fortes via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Tags: Asia, Cambodia, Indonesia

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


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