"Templed Out": An Afternoon through the Cambodian Countryside and along the Tonle Sap Lake

Day three of Siem Reap, and we’re still at it. We had bought a 3-day temple pass, and today was the final day. By the end of the morning, after seeing five more temples, we were all “templed out.”

Ted and I began our morning on the back of an elephant; we rode the elephant from the South Gate to Bayon through Angkor Thom. Rachel and Jason opted for some more sight seeing. Ted was thrilled because this was his first elephant ride. Our ride was a little bouncy but relaxing. We even saw some monkeys grooming themselves on the side of the road. After carting us around, we fed the elephant some bananas. I think he or she enjoyed the tasty treat!

The first of the next set of temples was Prasat Preah Khan. I wish I had more to say about it, but after 2 ½ days of walking up hundreds of steps in the extreme, exhausting heat, visiting temple after temple, it’s getting hard to distinguish between some of the smaller ones and keep up our enthusiasm. After Prasat Preah Khan, we visited Neak Pean and Prasat Ta Som. Prasat Ta Som had huge centipedes and some rather large spiders within the crevices and in the corners of the large, moss-covered stones.

Our final destination before lunch, and the last temple of our days at Angkor Wat (at least this visit), was East Mibon, which had 8 rather large stone elephants around it. We took a ton of photos, and we’ve been enjoying taking it all in.

After lunch at a nearby touristy restaurant, Ted and I veered paths from Rachel and Jason. They went to an artisan shop, and we went to the floating villages along the Tonle Sap lake. I’ve never really been anywhere quite like it. Some of the houses are built on stilts and many of the others are built of bamboo and float along the river. The houses move at least 3 times a year. We even saw some being tugged by a boat, and some of the floating market boats passing from house to house selling groceries. If it’s at all possible, I think it was even more impoverished along the river and lake than in the countryside. It’s devastating to see the conditions that the majority of the people live in here. Ted has been shooting a lot of video. I hope it turns out. Still shots will surely not do justice.

We’ve observed quite a bit of wildlife, especially driving in the countryside and through the small villages on the way to different ruins and the floating village. Cows, yaks, chickens, roosters, dogs, and cats have free rein in the streets. There are also horses and water buffalo along the roadside. We have seen a lot of crocodiles on farms and elephants and monkeys while touring some of the ruins. In addition to all of the wildlife we have been able to listen to the live music of disabled, landmine victims. These people got tired of begging for money, so they have learned to play instruments and formed bands playing traditional Khmer music. The bands are at many of the temples. They accept donations and sell CDs. Ted, Rachel, and I all bought CDs from various groups.

Tomorrow we plan to do a bit of shopping before heading to the airport. Ted and I will fly to Phnom Penh, and Rachel and Jason are heading to Hanoi to stay with one of their friends. We’ll all meet back up together in Hanoi to head to Ha Long Bay early next week.

We've arrived in Cambodia!

We arrived in Cambodia two days ago, after a short flight from Ho Chi Minh City, and have been having a great time. Everyone here is so friendly and the sites are unbelievable, but this is certainly the poorest country I've ever been to. Siem Reap is a bit more touristy and as a Westerner, I think it’s a bit easier to adjust to. I’ve been having a hard time adjusting to all of the pollution and the artic temperatures that Courtney keeps setting the room air conditioner to, so I’ve developed a bit of a persistent cough. When we arrived at the airport, we were met by two tuk tuk drivers from our hotel. It was kind of fun, I think it’s the first time I’ve stepped out of an airport and found a man standing there with my name on a sign. We were able to get Mr. Loeun as our driver, the same one Caitlin had when she visited back in November, and he has been really nice. He took us back to our hotel, the Villa at Siem Reap, and we dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore a bit of the city and grab some dinner.

We found a great place called The Red Piano and we each had our first taste of the traditional Khmer food. Jason and I ordered a Chicken Curry dish, Courtney ordered Amok Fish, and Rachel had a pork dish. All of the food looked great and mine was outstanding. After dinner we wandered around the shops a little bit and there seems to be a few nice markets in town to look for trinkets in on our last day. We called it a pretty early night though so we could get ready for our 5 am pickup to see the sunrise over Ankor Wat.

Our drivers arrived at 5 am sharp and we headed off with them to Angkor Wat. We arrived at the park and we all had to hop out of the van to pay the $40 for the three day pass and have our picture taken. Once we all had our passes, we drove in the 5 miles or so until we reached Ankor Wat. The site is incredible. I don’t think any picture or video can really do it justice. From a far you are taken in by the overall size of the structure and once you cross the moat over the main bridge, you really see how spread out the structure is inside the walls. Our tour guide was outstanding the entire day. He spoke very good English and was really easy to understand. The sunrise was acutally quite overcast, but it didn't really matter. We all enjoyed the experience and got some wonderful pictures.

After a short breakfast, we headed to the South Gate of Angkor Thom the last capital of Angkor, which was active during the 12th centurie I think our guide said. This structure is equally impressive. The road leading up to the gate is lined by the ruins of over 30 Buddahs pulling on a snake as if they were playing tug of war. Again the scale is just impressive, each one is easily two times taller then me. The gate itself was decorated with a giant Buddah head with four faces pointing north, south, east and west. The lips on each face were over 10 feet across. I can't even imagine how people during this time period were able to move the rocks to build these temples. The rest of the day we spent at Bayon and Ta Prohm before returning back to Ankor Wat in the afternoon to see all of the intricate carvings in great detail with our guide. While we were at Bayon, the King of Laos showed up for a visit and we were ushered aside by the Cambodian Police while photographers and his entourage passed us. We were only about 5 or 10 feet away from them when they passed us. Certainly not the same kind of security you would see in the US had some random dignitary showed up to view a tourist attraction.

Ta Prohm is known as the jungle temple and is the location where they filmed the Tomb Raider movie. This temple like the others was spectacular. The walls of the temple here are overgrown with the roots of 1000 year old fig trees. Its incredible to see the power of nature as the trees literally tear the walls of the temple apart as their roots grow between the blocks of stone. After viewing Ta Prohm, we headed back to the hotel to enjoy some lunch and take a break from the heat and stairs of the temples.

At 2:00 pm our driver and guide returned to pick us up again. We headed back to Angkor Wat, the most popular of the temples, and saw all of the intricate carvings in great detail. Our guide seemed to know everything about the carvings. We found out later that they send them off to a 7 month training school in order to become tour guides. The carvings though for the most part depict different stories from the hindu scriptures. Our guide told us it took over 37 years to construct Angkor Wat and after seeing all of the detail work I can't believe they finished it so quickly. Aside from seeing all of the intricate carvings on the interior, I saw my first group of wild monkies! As we were entering the temple Courtney spotted one in the grass and pointed it out. She immediately told me to be careful because they try to steal all of your stuff. I of course ignored her and went straight for the video camera. Well as soon as I opened the bag and starting rustling the zip lock bag I was keeping it in, the Monkey immediately looked up at me and started running towards me. Needless to say, I ran up the stairs of the temple behind Courtney to get away from it. It followed me all the way up into the temple though before it became scared by other tourists heading out of the temple. As soon as the monkey retreated a bit, I did manage to get my video camera out and get some video of them. There were probably a group of about 6 or 7 or them hanging out on the wall of the temple eating some kind of big friut.

After a long first day in the park we headed back to our hotel, said goodbye to our guide and driver, and enjoyed a couple drinks for happy hour at the hotel before heading back into town to find some dinner. Beers are only 70 cents at the hotel! We had dinner at a nice little place called Temple Bar and we were able to see some Cambodian traditional dancers perform while we were eating our meals.

This morning we left the hotel at 6:30 am with our tuk tuk drivers and headed out to Bantay Srei which is about an hour or so from Siem Reap. The country side was beautiful and it was nice ride with the open air of the tuk tuk….

Well this internet café is about to close, so I’ll have to pick this up when we have more time.

We’re having a blast though….Tomorrow we’ll be riding elephants!

Cambodia: Temples, Temples, and more Temples!

Today is our second day in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We arrived after a short flight 45-50 minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It’s funny on the plane because I ordered our tickets on expedia.com, and my account automatically requests vegetarian meals. So on the flight these two stewardesses came over to me to confirm that I had ordered vegetarian meals. They were really official and even had me show them my boarding pass. When they brought our meals, mine was marked with a special label. So Ted opened his (non-veg) meal, which was a cup of mixed fruit, water, and a kitkat. He was immediately intrigued as to what my meal would consist of since his was already non-veg. Mine was the same, minus the kitkat bar! We both had a laugh, and then he gave me his candy bar. I guess when you special order meals, you never know what you’re going to get!

Rachel, Jason, and I already had our visas, but Ted went to the visa line at the airport. I was waiting behind Rachel and Jason, which seemed to be taking forever. Rachel told me that the passport stamping lady kept asking for a $1 bribe, when Rachel finally snapped at her! Mr. Loeun, our tuk-tuk driver, met us at the airport to bring us into town.

Cambodia is truly an experience. The people are incredibly nice and the scenery is gorgeous. The poverty can be overwhelming, though. I have experienced significantly less culture shock on this trip than when I came alone 4 years ago. I think it was nice to fly (last time I traveled by land on the poorly conditioned roads). We checked immediately into our hotel, the Villa Siem Reap, which is fantastic, and then we walked downtown to dinner. The downtown, “touristy” area is adorable. It caters to westerners and reminds me of Bali. I had my first Khmer meal, the amok fish, at the Red Piano. Yum! The evening ended with a one hour foot massage for less than $5.

Wednesday morning, we woke up early and left the hotel by 5 a.m. to try and catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat with a guided tour and private car that Jason had previously arranged. I guess we were there for the sunrise, but it was pretty overcast. The five magnificent, soaring towers of Angkor Wat would impress anyone. We didn’t end up touring the temples of Angkor Wat until later in the afternoon.



After sunrise, we visited the Angkor Thom complex. We entered through the South Gate and continued on into the Bayon temple area. There the king of Laos was also visiting, so there were security guards everywhere, and parts of the tour were postponed. We walked along the stone paths and climbed the temples. We also passed the Terrace of the Elephants on our way out by taxi.

We then toured Ta Prohm, which is known as the “jungle temple.” This is where Tomb Raider was filmed, and the roots of trees thousands of years old seemed to have taken over and conquered the stone ruins. We ate some lunch at the hotel, and gave our feet a break.

The afternoon ended at a second visit to the famous Angkor Wat. The temples are filled with intricate carvings in depicting many of the Hindu myths and epics. It was beautiful and very impressive, even for my second visit. Angkor’s earliest monuments date from 802, under Jayavarman II. Jayavarman VII, the greatest temple-builder of them all, finished building the temples by the end of 1219. Angkor Wat is famous for “The Churning of the Ocean of Milk,”a popular theme in Khmer art. It depicts the creation myth of a famous Hindu epic.

We ended the day with dinner at The Temple Bar, where we were able to see the ancient art of Apsara dance free upstairs.

Today we were able to sleep in a little later. We left the hotel by 6:30 a.m. and traveled by tuk-tuk about 45 minutes to an hour. After an authentic tour through the rural, underdeveloped countryside, we arrived to Banteay Srei. This unique mini-temple had intricately carved reddish stone also depicting many Hindu myths. We continued our Angkor Wat tour with a visit to Banteay Samre, which was much less touristy and a little more in tact. Our final stop before lunch was Pre Rup, which was a smaller temple along the road but with spectacular views. From the highest tier, I could even view Angkor Wat through the trees.

We had lunch at a nearby tourist restaurant, which was a little odd because we had previously ordered a pack lunch from the hotel. Our tuk-tuk drivers feared rain and convinced us to eat at a table in a restaurant rather than take our chances at a picnic lunch under the open sky. It’s been really hot, too, so we went to the restaurant. They asked us to buy a drink, but we were able to take all of our food into the restaurant to eat, which felt kind of strange.

After eating lunch, we toured two more sights, Srah Srang and Banteay Kdei, before the rain hit. We have one more day on the temple pass tomorrow, so hopefully we can catch any of the sights we may have missed.

We took advantage of our hotel’s happy hour and then went to dinner at the eclectic Deadfish restaurant. I ordered more Khmer food (which is awesome, by the way), and Rachel and I were able to feed almost 15 crocodiles for 50 cents each.