The first thing that struck me about Cambodia was the endless amount of construction that is going on in Siem Reap. (Well, that and the fact that the roads are unpaved.)
The big draw in Siem Reap are the temples built by the
Khmer Empire. Most were built by
King Jayavarman VII in the 12th century. However, they were lost to the Western world until these sites were popularized by a French explorer,
Henri Mouhot, in the mid-19th century. Some examples of the artwork at the temples are:
Even the walls of the temples are covered with intricate stories, such as this one depicting the victory of the Khmer over the Chăm Pa.
The temples are known to be difficult for tourists to access because of the steps, for example. There's been signficant effort to make it easier by the addition of wooden steps for tourists to use.
This is a statute of the "Leper King" at the Terrace of the Leper King. According to our tour guide, some Cambodians thinks it's a statute of King Jayavarman VII, but Wikipedia explains that it depicts the Hindu god Yama, the god of Death.
After a day of touring the temple we went and saw the sunset on the Tonle Sap where there's also a floating village.
Here's a view of our boat speeding away from a boat of mercenaries (okay, actually just more tourists).
Along the river are some fish farms.
Our tour guide dropped us off at a restaurant to watch an apsara performance.
Here's a view of the streets at night - notice the absence of streetlights.
The next morning, we saw the sunrise at Angkor Wat (and yes, this is the clichéd shot).
Another temple is Neak Pean, which was built as a hospital and is surrounded by pools representing each of the four elements.
Each element is also represented by a creature. Here is the elephent representing... hmm... good question.
View from the top of another temple....
The temples used to be much more chaotic with stones scattered on the grounds.
Back to Angkor Wat, the main towers are now closed to tourists after a mishap at the end of 2008 and won't reopen until they finish installing wooden stairs (similar to the ones we saw above).
They've already put a number of stairs already so those towers might be open again soon.
Our guide pointed out that at the rear part of Angkor Wat, there were signs that the artwork is unfinished.
Our guesthouse looked much better at night... let's just say photos can be deceiving (but the service was good).
On our last day, we headed up to visit the waterfall. There's a toll, however, because a private businessman owns the road leading up to the waterfall. Note that the ticket prices for locals and foreign tourists are very different.
This is the waterfall where a lot of locals go up to relax.
On the way back, we stopped by Banteay Srei.
After that it's on to the airport and then home. Bangkok Air has quite a colorful paint scheme for its planes.
Well worth the visit. If you get a chance, you should definitely go. If you have any questions, drop me a line.
--
more --
Posts
