... with our uneventful 7 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. We arrived at our guest house (With a pool!!! YAY!!! $20 per night with breakfast – it was a splurge!) at around 9:00pm, went out for dinner at Pub Street, which we got lured into a Khmer place which was bloody expensive for what it served. But I was tired and hungry so I didn’t argue. Siem Reap was full of foreigners and so the locals spoke more English (at least in the tourist areas). There were too many adults and kids trying to sell stuff at every temple/street/night market that you were barely able to walk without someone asking you to " Lady, BUY something". We were only there for 3 days and I was getting tired already… I suppose the sole purpose for many who come to Cambodia is to visit the Angkor temples, and it’s a huge source of income for the people so it breeds this kind of behaviour.
We started the next morning at 9:00am with our tuktuk driver named Som (nickname: Cobra). We went to get our 3-day pass ($40) and then he took us to the famous Angkor Wat which was built by Suryavarnam II in the 12th century “as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. It is the world's largest religious building” as per Wikipedia.
Angkor Wat was huge! And it was well preserved due to the amount of conservation efforts taking place, it would have been more romantic if the green scaffolding weren’t there on the middle tower smack bang in the middle of your pictures, and the millions of people didn’t get in the way of your picture (I am guessing everybody thought that). Weaving through many tourists like us, we went around the temple viewing the 4 carved walls depicting various Hindu stories like the classic Ramayana story where Sita is abducted and Rama comes to the rescue, to the 37 Hells and 32 Heavens (or something like that); the Churning of the Milk where the demons and gods are ringing/playing tug of war/churning with a massive serpent and rings out the “milk” (nectar of immortal life) which Vishnu in the form of a turtle catches in his shell. The last one was Krishna and Shiva battling with the demon lord. We also went up to the centre of the temple, climbing up really steep stairs to the top which is now resided by Buddha statues. The Cambodian history is deeply rooted in Hinduism, and for me it was interesting how Buddhism and Hinduism amalgamated together.
We visited about 12 temples/ruins in total over the 3 days so I won’t bore you with describing all of them. Otherwise this entry would go on forever, but we did like Banteay Srei (I think it was dedicated to Lakshmi) which was really well preserved and made from red sandstone, and Beng Melea which is about 60km from Siem Reap but well worth the visit (if anyone is planning to!).
Our days ended with a nice dip in the pool afterwards as we were sticky, hot, and dusty from riding for hours in the tuktuk. We then proceeded to dinner followed by an hour long foot massage after, oh bliss!
Anyways, we returned to Phnom Penh after 3 days of temples (we were templed out), our bus journey consisted of almost leaving a eastern European family stranded at a rest stop, and a man shouting and screaming in anger about something. After we got back we both caught a cold and have been slowly recovering.
For more photos of Siem Reap and Angkor Wat: https://picasaweb.google.com/natsufujita/CambodiaJuneJuly?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNjJ14zgnpap3QE&feat=directlink
We started the next morning at 9:00am with our tuktuk driver named Som (nickname: Cobra). We went to get our 3-day pass ($40) and then he took us to the famous Angkor Wat which was built by Suryavarnam II in the 12th century “as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation – first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. It is the world's largest religious building” as per Wikipedia.
Angkor Wat was huge! And it was well preserved due to the amount of conservation efforts taking place, it would have been more romantic if the green scaffolding weren’t there on the middle tower smack bang in the middle of your pictures, and the millions of people didn’t get in the way of your picture (I am guessing everybody thought that). Weaving through many tourists like us, we went around the temple viewing the 4 carved walls depicting various Hindu stories like the classic Ramayana story where Sita is abducted and Rama comes to the rescue, to the 37 Hells and 32 Heavens (or something like that); the Churning of the Milk where the demons and gods are ringing/playing tug of war/churning with a massive serpent and rings out the “milk” (nectar of immortal life) which Vishnu in the form of a turtle catches in his shell. The last one was Krishna and Shiva battling with the demon lord. We also went up to the centre of the temple, climbing up really steep stairs to the top which is now resided by Buddha statues. The Cambodian history is deeply rooted in Hinduism, and for me it was interesting how Buddhism and Hinduism amalgamated together.
We visited about 12 temples/ruins in total over the 3 days so I won’t bore you with describing all of them. Otherwise this entry would go on forever, but we did like Banteay Srei (I think it was dedicated to Lakshmi) which was really well preserved and made from red sandstone, and Beng Melea which is about 60km from Siem Reap but well worth the visit (if anyone is planning to!).
Our days ended with a nice dip in the pool afterwards as we were sticky, hot, and dusty from riding for hours in the tuktuk. We then proceeded to dinner followed by an hour long foot massage after, oh bliss!
Anyways, we returned to Phnom Penh after 3 days of temples (we were templed out), our bus journey consisted of almost leaving a eastern European family stranded at a rest stop, and a man shouting and screaming in anger about something. After we got back we both caught a cold and have been slowly recovering.
For more photos of Siem Reap and Angkor Wat: https://picasaweb.google.com/natsufujita/CambodiaJuneJuly?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNjJ14zgnpap3QE&feat=directlink
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