Please note, if Chris were blogging today, there would be more historical detail & reasoning as to significance. Unfortunately his phone is full & he cannot take photos, so you've got me.
For some good views. The upside of rainy season is that everything is green & lush. 
(Another traveler told us of a city in Thailand where the main attraction was to have the monkeys crawl all over you-this experience sealed the deal for me-pass.)
I had to leave due to the sun pouring down & the hoards of tourists. One thing I did see, that warned my heart was this elderly couple touring together in their old age. That's going to be us!!
Baphuon had the typical outer gate, walkway to inner temples. CHECK WIRH GUIDE BOOK. 
TA PROHM
We have artwork from most of our trips. There were beautiful oil paintings for $5. Some of the temples in grey and black and then the monks in bright orange. However, we both were conflicted on having these images I our home. There was a woodcarving on the wall in our hotel and although it was of a religious symbol, I liked the style and thought it was "different" to go with out artwork from around the world. Chris agreed and we started looking for a circular carving of an elephant. But we didn't see any elephants in Cambodia-so we began to look for one of a flower. We proved them our, looked at sizes. That's the key to bargaining-be able to walk away, which we did, back to our hotel because it was raining, again.
ANGKOR WAT
This is the World's largest religious building. It's also Cambodia's most popular temple & is on Cambodia's flag. This is where we could've come for sunrise-and we're thankful we didn't.
We climbed some really steep steps.
We saw some wild monkeys where I had the unfortunate experience of being near a fight between a bird & a monkey. How you ask? The monkey sat on the ledge above me & the bird drive bombed him. The monkey swatted at the bird & squawked. The bird flapped his wings at the monkey-and repeatedly dive bombed the monkey.
Of note in Angor Wat had extensive bas-reliefs telling a story.
ANGKOR THOM-SOUTH GATE
We passed through this site yesterday & I was so pleased to return today with time for photos. There are 54 figures that line each side of the road-one side demons, the other side gods. This depicts their creation story. You can also see the restoration work being done on the heads.
ANGKOR THOM-BAYON
This site was my favorite of the day-mostly for all the faces. It also was the busiest and the only place we had to fight tourists for "the shot" (which we often missed as our selfie stick broke).
We again climbed up some very steep steps (the steepest by far) to which I said "this is why my family worried about me when I travel."
To get these beautiful photos. We're not in any photos as the lighting was bad & our face were dark. But you can see other faces in this photo-some of the 216 faces of Avalokiteshvara.
We made it safely down this town & over to the main tower to be up close & personal with the faces. (We used our digital camera today & this may have better shots on it.)
ANGKOR THOM-BAPHUON
This temple was in the midst of being restored when Khmer Rouge, once again ruined everything & destroyed the records. It looked a bit like a graveyard.
We climbed up more stairs-this time they were tourist friendly as we climbed steep wooden steps over the existing stone steps. It started to rain & I was afraid they'd make us come down. I should've known better-these were pretty much unregulated "walk wherever" temples. There were some pillars-which is how we remember this temple.
ANGKOR THOM-TERRACE OF THE ELEPHANTS
ANGKOR THOM-PIMEANAKAS
We walked to this temple from Baphuon. We did a "pass by" as we were not to enter it.
ANGKOR THOM-TERRACE OF LEPER KING
Again we walked through nature to get to this part of Angkor Thom. I quite liked the natural progression of the Thoms. This temple had been restored & you can tell from the puzzle-like blocks. The theory is that this was the Royal crematorium. The good photos are on the camera.
CHAU SAY THEVODA/THOMMANOM
We climbed some steps & wrestled with the selfie stick. There was again, some good restorative work.
TA KEO
This was a tall temple-and we of course ventured up the steep, small stairs. I can't tell if the Khmer people had really small feet or if they were more adept at rock climbing.
We made our way up two sets of stairs (the second set was more steep) to those windows in the back.
We're up so high!!
Also known as the "Tomb Raider" temple. We haven't seen the movie, so we couldn't capture "the shot." This is a temple with permissive overgrowth of nature.
This was a good reminder of how strong nature's desire to grow. These were trees that started to grow on top of the stone.
And they have been there for 1000s of years.
This was our last temple-perfectly on time as it has started to rain.
We returned to the hotel, showered, and went back to our laundry lady to inquire about some missing clothing. I lost another pair of underware. That means I'm down to 4 pairs!!!! Chris, being the optimist, said we should stop by & ask her if she has them. And she did-which made me the happiest tourist in Siem Reap. (TMI-maybe, but I mainly write this blog for myself to remember the details.) I hugged the laundry lady-not sure if that was a cultural taboo, but the difference between 4 & 5 pairs of underware is huge when moving around this much in backpacking!!
Lunch was at the Red Piano. I had pork & Ginger (for $3.75) & Chris had chicken stir fry & his first beer of the trip-Angor.
We returned to the market and I again saw the silver frog. I had to have it-but not necessarily from her. She said 8, I said 4, she said 7, I said 4. She weighed it and thought. She said 6, I began to walk away (it was early afternoon, we had all night). She agreed to $4!!!!
We needed to figure out our travel plans-mainly how to get to Bangkok to then travel up to Chiang Mai. We're heading to Malaysia for a weekend to catch up with a former co-worker, so that prompted me to check flights. Flights were $126 each-so we decided to fly! That gave us a better framework for what the next few days will look like and we needed to book hostels, etc. Traveling is busy-let along the blogging aspect!!
Chris was hungry after our 4pm lunch (I was not) so we headed out to the night market. He had fried rice and a Cambodia beer.
The night market was disappointing and so we headed to pub street for smoothies. Chris and I must be growing alike because our of 30 options, we both picked the same one. That's no good, so we agreed on a second.
Dragon fruit & mango
Passion fruit & pineapple
Fresh fruit drinks for $1!!!
We meandered around the market a bit more. Elephant pants, Buddhas, paintings, t-shirts, and wooden bead bracelets along with thetraditional souvenir items. For all the stalls at the art market, night market, and market market, we didn't find a wood carving that was the right size and of a flower. We are backpacking-it has to fit in our packs. It was hard to walk by the $1 t-shirts, but I know shopping while backpacking is a dangerous slope.
Tomorrow should be a relaxing morning before an afternoon flight! I'm excited to fly. My regret is that we didn't have time to hit the Cambodian beaches. I wish I'd known the hospitality of the Cambodian people-we would have stayed longer if we could have. I'm wise enough to know we won't be back-there's still a whole world to explore.
No comments:
Post a Comment