Yes, we did make it to Temples

I realize I named the last one a bit prematurely--but Siem Reap, while known for it's temples, has a lot more to do than just that. So, as with most things I do, I got sidetracked.

Anyway, the next day we woke up for temple hopping. We grabbed a tuk-tuk that could fit all five of us (it was a bit of a squeeze) and headed to the Angkor Wat complex.

Our driver seemed super sweet, and knew what he was doing--which was fortuitous. We stopped to pay and get our photos taken for our passes, we bought three day passes so we could go back as much as we wanted. And with the Lonely Planet South East Asia and our driver as our guides, headed to our first temple.

First stop: The temple with all the faces--Bayon.

Pretty cool. Really big faces. But it was hot, and covered with tourists--mostly b/c this seems to be the first one everyone goes to. We were looking for the terrace of Elephants, but it was tough. We did see this long cool walkway thing to a temple that was currently closed for renovation. Interesting.

Then we saw the Terrace of Elephants. As you would be able to tell from many of the things I bought here--I like elephants a lot, so this was a fun one for me--a whole wall of them--it's where the kind used to look out on his victorious army or something.

Next we headed to what was definitely one of my favorite temples, the jungle one or umm, Ta Prohm. They left it as the found it (or mostly) so there are these amazing trees growing out of, around and through the temple. Beautiful. Also, it's being 'restored' with the help of the Indian Governmnent--Go India.http://picasaweb.google.com/asudow/TinTinAuCambodge/photo#5182328067644368498







Not bad right?

You might be asking why we didn't go see Angkor Wat right away--I mean, that's what we were there for right? Well. The thing is, we were saving it. We had grand plans to see Angkor Wat at sunrise, because apparently that's what you are supposed to do. And isn't that when all those beautiful paintings you see all over Cambodia are painted? With the red and yellow sky and the stones just glowing in the early morning light? Yeah, saving it.

I think we went to one more temple that day, just a bit off the beaten path and well worth it. We felt like we had the temple all to ourselves. AND We got to have a nice little lunch in a field.

That's me having the temple to myself.

Thing is, at all these temples there are these little girls, women, boys, everything, selling postcards, books, Khmere scarves, handicrafts, bottled water. They've all got the same sales pitch. They call you lady, ask if you want what they are selling, shove it in your face, ask again, when you say, no, I want to go to the temple, they say 'lady if you buy, you buy from me?' And then somehow you get away. And then, when you walk back out of the temple, there they are as promised, selling what you apparently promised to buy only from them, because their Khmere checked scarves are somehow better than the one of the not as cute girl who was also selling them. In true Jason and My fashion, they'd have fun with the girls. My would be sweet and ask their name and age, and the girls would love the attention.



Jason on the other hand would jokingly mess with them. They'd ask his name, he'd ask theirs, they'd try to sell a scarf, he'd tell them he could buy it for 1/3 of the price somewhere else. And for this reason, since the girls had so much fun with them, they followed us across the street to where we had lunch, and watched us eat for a while...

The other great thing about being in almost English speaking countries is their spelling. Most signs. menus etc are in English (and sometimes Cambodian and French too), since most tourists speak English, and a lot of the Cambodians do too.
So, sometimes, the English translation is just a bit off...'Think you somach!'


And this is why, conversly, I don't want to buy one of those shirts with cool Chinese/Cambodian/Thai writing on it unless I am with someone who will tell me (without lying) exactly what it says!.

That concluded day one of temple hopping. After the sun, walking around and just being out all day, we were pretty beat. We headed back to the guest houses to freshen up, sit for about 12 min, and decided it was worth going to see the sunset from another temple--on one of the people at the ticket booth's suggestion. Bad idea. Or rather, good one, but too many people had it. The walk up to the temple was so crowded it was like being on the streets in India, only without the cows and autos. At the top of the temple, it was just so crowded with people ready to see the sun sink behind the forest, that you could barely have a place to sit--or any peace and quiet. Plus, Let's be honest, I've seen sunsets before, what I wanted was the sun setting against the stones of the temple and the way it makes them glow...well, the sun set over the forrest, and while it was pretty, I could have benefitted just as much from watching it from a balcony in town with a cold beer in my had away from the masses.

We were all, as I mentioned, beat. We headed to the guest house once again and thought about what sounded good for dinner. Meanwhile, Priz had caught a tummy bug of sorts and was not ready to join us :(

Our foursome headed to town and realized that we'd had enough noodles and lok lok...somehow we all were thinking the same thing in our heads, PIZZA! Wow--can you get good pizza in Siem Reap or what. We found a little Italian Trattoria and feasted.

We needed our strength as the next day we were planning to get up before the sun to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. Well...Only Jason, My and I made it--and for me, the photographer, it was worth it. Talk about magic light time...and, on top of that, unlike the sunset experience, the temple wasn't totally overcrowded as I assumed it would be.


..and so I played with light







but wait, there's more! After rest and breakfast we headed out again--even 'further afield' as the Lonely Planet says than Bantey Samre the day before. Bantey Srei is the women's temple, and Hindu. But before we saw that, we drove about 2 hours on a dirt road to a place where you take a 45 min 'hike' to some rock carvings. And, as with most of that day, the journey was more interesting than what we walked to. We saw cool lizards, had fun with each other, and got to be in the woods.
See how much fun we're having?
The carvings, well, they were a bit, umm, underwhelming...


After lunch we piled back with Buntuhn in the tuk-tuk and headed down the dirt road to Bantey Srei. We saw small villages, lot's of nakey babies and goats and cows!

this is probably my favorite pic of the trip.

Bantey Srei, while small, was really impressive. Intricate carvings depicting Hindu gods Ganesh, Vishnu and prolly some others if I was better at knowing my Hindu religious facts. The other interesting thing about this temple (I overheard a tourguide say) was that there are bullet holes in it. The reason these temples weren't destroyed during PolPot's regime was that they were used as army forts. So, people shot at them. Wow.

Ok, so at this point I bet you are getting a little templed out? Yeah, me too. Priz and I hopped off the Tuk-Tuk about a km from our guest house to walk thru a small village/slum along the water. We'd been driving through it every day and wanting badly to shoot it. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Everyone smiles, everyone asks where you are from, and the pictures...well, see for yourself.







We headed back to our place to get ready for a night on the town. In talking to the guy at our guest house we found a great way to surprise Jason and My....Dinner would not only include feeding ourselves, but also some crocodiles the restaurant keeps in the basement!


Dead Fish (yes, that's it's name, catchy right?) was also just a really cool restaurant--lots of different levels and platforms. You sit on the floor on cushious and can kind of see all the other levels--we had our level all to ourselves! We also got to see a traditional Khmere dance--it was like half vegas showgirls (they were dancing for us on a raised platform above the bar), half high school dance recital (they were fully clothed and looked about 16).

We headed to another bar for a few more mojitos, and happily headed home!

The next day we slept in a little, I saw Angkor Wat again--with the lazies that couldn't wake up at dawn, and then headed to town for some shopping, aux byciclettes. Fun times. It's funny to bargain when you are paying in dollars, things feel like they cost more simply b/c it's not like monopoly money!

The only thing I couldn't get just right at the market was the Tin Tin au Cambodge shirt--luckily Tay was there the next week and picked me up a sweet one ;)