Phil-San (Is Trying To Be) In Japan: March 2008

Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm over, I'll combine the rest of the pass into here. I'm sure you'd be happy to never look at another photo of a temple on this blog, but that's not going to happen, so deal with it!

The main attraction for the day was Banteay Srei - a short distance outside the complex.

Rather uninspiring from a distance, it's famous for intricate carvings in the pinkish sandstone. Meaning "Citadel of the Women" it is believed that the temple was constructed by a woman, as the carvings are too fine for a man's hand!

A break from temples, we stopped at the Landmine Museum - this was the most heartbreaking, affecting moment for me. Honestly, I knew very little about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge beforehand and never expected the implications of what happened between 1979-mid80s to be so far reaching and affecting even today.

Aki Ra - a truly extraordinary person and life - was recruited as a young boy to lay landmines by the Khmer Rouge, after his parents were killed. He later defected to the Vietnamese Army and then to the UN where he runs the museum, looks after orphans who have had UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents, and and demines live mines. To this day, he believes he has defused around 50,000 landmines, which he says does little for the guilt of laying thousands of them in the first place. It's a truly thrilling story, and I'll write more in a separate post, as it's worth narrating.

The museum itself is nicely set up, with background details, and even a garden showing the different type of mines and UXOs.

More temples, including one with a tree devastating the gateway. All the children around the temples were fascinating to talk to, but it was here that I met my favourite. She was a little entrepreneur, wearing a jacket (in the heat!) and successfully sold me some water and bracelets. She told me about education, lifestyle and how Angkor Wat has been changing since the tourists started flocking. Her English was fabulous - I guess when you really need to learn a language or a trade to survive, it comes more naturally. Besides which, she has the same conversation (Where are you from? etc) over and over, I'm sure, which helps to no end.

Money is complicated in Cambodia - the biggest advice I can give to anyone travelling there is take lots of change - one dollar bills are essential, and if you have too many twenties and fifties, it's going to be hard to break them down. Most commodities and food/drink cost anywhere between a couple of dollars or a few thousand riehl, the Cambodian currency. It's taken as 4000 riehl to the dollar. So half a dollars change will be 2000 riehl (two 1000 riehl bills). There are no coins in Cambodia, as change is also notes. Therefore, there're a few ways to pay for purchases, but it's best to have some dollars and some riehl and to hand over a combination of the two. People also accept Baht, but the exchange rate fluctuated way too much to make much sense.

Other temples on the road back to Siem Reap, including something a bit different - Preah Neak Pean is a pool (now dry) surrounded by four smaller pools, constructed by... of course... Jman7. Naga, the serpents, form the water fountain heads.

One of the statues in the middle, is of a horse, dragging people to safety, which try to imagine, would look rather splendid if it was floating on a seat of water. This is one of those temples that would be spectacular to see in its heyday.

A few more pictures, that tell a thousand words (saving me the trouble)

Just a bit of time to play around on the tuk-tuk...

...cautiously approaching elephant crossings.

---

The last day in Angkor Wat, we went to the Roluos Group, a few temples built to the East of Siem Reap. They were much quieter than the others.

We climbed the top of Bakong where we met a group of schoolchildren who were eager to practice their English. They even taught us some Cambodian numbers. Here's Des with a few of them - the school book was in quite good shape, passed down each year for about a decade or so. Of course, they asked for some money afterwards.

The 'tour' over, and with the afternoon effectively free, we decided to return to Angkor Wat to examine the bas reliefs in more detail. The peak of the day, this was all shaded, and added to the tourists disappearing for lunch, we hardly saw anyone plus we stayed cool.

Completed in the 12th Century, the story rotates around the walls in an anti-clockwise position. It is based on Hindu tales, especially Mahabharata. In fact, a lot of the influence in Angkor is ancient Indian. The pictures are incredibly violent and gratuitous. Highlights:

a shower of arrows, and impailings (told you it was explicit!)

titled Heaven and Hell, the relief shows people ascending to heaven, or the wicked being dragged to hell and tortured.

The next section is brilliantly named The Churning Of The Ocean Of Milk. Sadly, half of it was shut of to restoration, but the whole bas relief is of 88 devils versus 92 gods (unfair?) in a tug of war, using a serpent as the rope, to churn up the sea for the elixir of immortality. Only the right hand side, the serpent's tail, was open.

More fighting, and gruesome deaths, as well as mythical creatures carrying the gods on their shoulders:

Many of the gods rode tigers, dragons, elephants and so on. Shiva lucked out and rode a scared...

Goose!

The final section was the Battle of Lanka. Ravana, leading the giants, stole Rama's wife Sita. With the help of his monkey army (yes, you read that right), Rama went for revenge:

The walk around the outer wall, studying the pictures took over 2 hours! Truth be told, I don't have the biggest attention span for this sort of stuff, but the game of finding the 'highlights' made time fly by, and I learnt something at the same time. Education IS fun!

Des and I relaxed by the moat, watching the world go by.

The final stop was sunset back at Bayon, with all the smiling faces. This was practically deserted as it wasn't a top spot for watching the sun go down, although it came recommended as the shadows across the faces made for striking photographs. I'm turning into one of those boring people who show holiday slide after slide, so I'll stick with two:

Leaving Angkor Wat, for the last time, the place had emptied out, and the monkeys had come to play:

The three days had flown past, and although I was completely templed out, it was the best £20 I'd ever spent.