Late a Day

Hi folks, sorry I missed the Monday posting. It's been a hectic couple of days around here. I told you that Deeds and I were off to Cambodia for three days. Specifically to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat.
What a place. Temples going all the way back to the 11th century. Very intricate stone work and a lot a lot of rebuilding and repairing of damaged temples to do.
Many of the sites we went to had country sponsors. Germany and India were two that we saw that had archaeological teams on site helping the Cambodians try to put some of these temples and holy sites back into viewable condition. Money is the biggest issue. You still have to pick stones up and put them back where they were 600 years ago. This takes equipment and manpower, which all costs money.
We stayed in a very nice hotel with a great little pool. Only $50 a night. And the food at the hotel was very good as well. We ventured into town one night to go to "Pub Street". That is what it is called. Full of pubs and restaurants for the many tourists who come here to see the temples.
Temples, wow. 238 of them in the Angkor Archaeological Park and surrounding area.
We saw 4 in 2 1/2 days.
Most famous of course is Angkor Wat.

Seen here on our last day. We got up at 5 and met the tour guide at 5:30 so we could be at Angkor Wat for sunrise behind the temple. No coffee, no Timmies to pick up on the way in Siem Reap.
Clouds! And this is what you pay the big money for. Sun behind the temple and reflection of the temple in the pool in front. Probably 200 people there. Our guide was over at the food court in the parking lot having pancakes and bananas. We went over and said, Hey, all cloudy so not much more to see let's go. "Ohhh, you have more to see, wait, is very good, take more picture", as he slurped his hot coffee and munched on pancake. So we walked back for another 15 minutes of standing around watching fools trying to take pictures with their phones. When we went back he had his laptop open and was showing all the other guide buddies his facebook page, where he had, as he had told us for the 23rd time in 2 days posted more of his pics and comments. "Ayyyeeee, we go now", I said. "Ohhhhh you should walk down the path to the center point and front gate, very many picture for you too take", he said. More slurping of hot coffee and talking and pointing at his laptop with buddies. So off we went to finally head back to the hotel and some breakfast.
 This is a shot of Angkor Wat from the back of the temple as we exited the temple on day 2.

The rest of our last day was absolutely fantastic, but I think I will digress to the beginning of the trip. Also I will let Deeds talk about the end of the trip in a last post from Thailand that she has planned. More later but let me digress.

 We started our temple tour at Bayon. Main building above. If you only see two temples it is Angkor and Bayon. A major rebuild and restoration underway here as well but with all the visitors must be very hard to do. 

Too prove we were there they always wanna take ur picture!

One of the most famous pictures to be taken at Bayon.

Most amazing thing at all the wats is the profusion of broken pieces missing from the building, lower left.

As always there is a place where people can go and pray in front of a present day Buddha image. This was the set up out the back of the temple as we exited through a forest out to the waiting car.
You will notice I did not say quiet forest. The cicada (sakata) bugs around here are unbelievable. Must be as big as raccoons for the noise they make.

At the top of the temple windows all around

 Did I mention that we got to do a lot of climbing up vertical staircases. These temples were made for little footed Asians. Not so easy for big foot like your blogger to make it up and down.

Back in the day the roof would have been covered in wood. Long since rotted and fallen down.

The palace wall separating temple from the forest now.

Out side we wait for our ride.

Here comes the hard part, only four days later. We went to another temple and I forgot to take the obligatory first picture showing the name of the place. When I find out I will post the name for the curious. This temple is famous because of the soft red sandstone that it is made of. Not the hardy good stuff like Bayon or Angkor. As well, alot more restoration needs to be done here.

Approaching the front of the temple

Very intricate carving of the stone

 

 

 

An example of the stonework.

And then finally from here we were travelling back towards the town of Siem Reap. We were to possibly see a sunset from the top of a temple. Something Deeds and I were not looking forward too as it meant climbing another set of vertical steps up 150 feet. Lucky for us this was the scene when we got there..............

Got room for two more?? Don't think so.

 

So home we went for the end of day one in Cambodia. Well not quite. We did get into a little wine and some Angkor beerz down on Pub Street. Not a lot though. The weather was brutal. 42 degrees. Humid and we had been up since 5 that morning. Tomorrow is another day.

Day two started early at  Ta Promh. Another restoration project. This one apparently 8 years into a 10 year fix with help from Germany. Well it looked to us like they had more than two years worth of work left but who are we to say. Only reno we ever did was an addition to our house, oh and the basement, and the kitchen - twice. So maybe we are qualified to comment??!!

Anyway we learned here that one of the causes of busted temples is trees. They grow pretty big here and for about 600 years as well. When they die and they do, they fall down, sometimes on top of a temple. 

Maybe thy should think more about cutting down a few trees, like we did when we had our reno, since I am some kinda expert as we established a little earlier, but I digress again. 

So the big trees, either strangler figs or banyan take over the temple. At Promh seems to have been purposely left to show the takeover of nature that can occur when a wat is abandon. Some repairs and rebuild has been done here but it looks like the attraction is too great for them to remove the big trees.

Strangler fig

Lots of stone to be moved here.

Big tree, big roots climbing over everything

They chip away at the root here so you can see the image hidden behind. Not magic, just tourism 101

 Only one more wat to visit after this one as we head to lunch. Next up. Angkor Wat.
Now a lot of you have probably seen pics of this site. Here in Bangkok at the Royal Palace they have a mini version of this temple on the grounds, it is that sacred to Buddhists. I won't go into all the details of the place as there is plenty on line for all of you who are interested, otherwise here are a number of the pics we took. Some at the side, or half way up or as far up as you can go on the temple. Yes Martha there was more climbing to be done. And girls, you have to wear a full dress when you get to the top. And no hats please.
So here is what we saw.

At the front gate

First view from the western south side.

Help for upkeep from Germany

Why are their boobies all shiny? Good luck to rub them!!

Up on the second level

On the second level

The lotus flower towers

Join the line up to climb to the third level

 

A view westward from level 3 to the main gate and the forest beyond

On level 3

 Some of the most intricate stone work at Angkor Wat exists on the first level. The story of Vishnu the Hindu God which the temple is built for is told all around the outside walls as releifs such as those below.

So there ya are folks. Our tour of Angkor Wat reduced to a blog page. And there are things I didn't tell you about. Like the cruise we took in a fishing type boat out to see a real floating village. They had a floating school which had a floating gymnasium. We saw kids playing volleyball, which is very big here, on a raft that is screened in on all sides. There are about 125 houses out in this village. All anchored out in Tonle Sap Lake.
And of course don't forget about the special blog feature coming from Deedles. You will love that!
And of course ya gotta know, we are so excited. Leaving Thailand in just 13 days. Wow.
Sawasdee Krup