Wat Phu is "Lao's Angkor Wat". Built in the 6th century by some guy obsessed with phallic symbols (apparently even the location was chosen because a nearby hill was phallic-shaped), it's at a weird level of tourism. There's a ticket entrance and a lot of people to sell tickets, to bus you to the temple, etc., but not a lot of signs and very little information for what you are actually seeing.
That being said, I was really happy we went. This is a view of the top temple from the cliffside.
Climbing the staircase to get to the temple- how pretty are those trees?!
According to a couple sources (looked up BEFORE we went to the temple; of course there was no signage actually at the site), the "Alligator stone", archaeologists suspect, was used in ancient rituals of human sacrifice. It even looks like it's human sized... very creepy. When we moved in to get a closer look, a weird looking salamander all of a sudden came out of the water pooled in one of the hand/claws of the stone. Bad sign; I got out of there fast)
Buddhist shrine within the temple
In front of the "library"
Also, we biked there. It was only 15 k from the hotel, but the bikes weren't really meant for (a) speed, or (b) dirt/ gravel roads. But a 30k bike ride with limited sunscreen = a bit of a sunburn on my arms and legs.
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