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Published: September 29th 2011
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Tired and exhausted from the usual luxury and gorgeousness of the Maldives we felt in need of a large dose of rough, hence a travelling holiday. Welcome one and all to our mini blog selection from Cambodia.
Eva Air, London Heathrow to Taipei was our passport to the Kingdom of Cambodia and I must stress what a quality porthole it was. Big plane, lots of room, even for the sheep. Quality fixture and fittings and a clean toilet kept all of the group satsified for the whole ten and a half hours it took to touch down in Bangkok. A ten mile walk to the transfer gate and a bit of messing around on a bus we were onboard our rotary powered aeroplane heading to Siem Reap.
Now, through an unusual lack of time prior to this trip no research and weather look-ups had taken place so we arrived and heard there had been a bit of rain. No problem we thought, we are British after all, rain is an everyday occurance for us however, Cambodia is as flat as a pancake and the majority of the country is built on the flood plain of the Tonle Sap Lake
so heavy rain and a tropical depression in neighbouring countries meant many parts of Cambodia were flooded. Neither it would seem are we out of the monsoon so most parts of Siem Reap was inaccessible.
That said, our hotel is fine we are based outside of town so haven't had any problems. In fact we have burnt ourselves almost everyday since we arrived and our ever fealess tuk-tuk driver has kept us on the move, wading through knee high water to get us where we want to be.
We have already seen Ankor Wat, Ankor Thom, Bayon and Ta Prohom to name but a few. The oldest temples are Hindu built around 800 AD, these tend to be tall and made of small bricks. Very similar looking to the temples we visited in South India with images of Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva etc.
As the centuries roll on by each king wanted to out do the other and built bigger more elaborate temples to celebrate the gods. Buddism then started to take over from Hinduism so images of Budda became more common place.
Considering each temple is about one thousand years old its surprising we could walk
on and touch them.
Each structure is amazingly strong but the plants and trees have done a lot of damage. Many of the temples are being partically restored which at first sight is slightly annoying for the photos but its good to see them trying to preserve whats left. Much of the newer temples are sandstone so a lot of the bas relief carvings have oozed away with the rain but you can still make out the artwork which of course is very good.
Unlike the Indian temples they are kept super clean and litter free. The only cows around the ancient temples are the sandstone type so no poo to dodge which is always a bonus when away from home!
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Morag Willsher
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Devouring plants
Wowsers, love those plants swallowing up the man-made buildings! Mo