Tomb Raiding

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Ah to sleep in, what bliss is that? Back in London I always looked forward to Saturday mornings more than any other time of the day. Firstly I was waking up at home and not at work, secondly I didn’t have to work but thirdly and most importantly I could lie in. I have found that the further I move away from being at school, University or College my ability to sleep during these lie ins is greatly reduced and I normally wake up by 8ish. Do I get out of bed? No, of course not, I like to lie there and ponder and think how great that it is a Saturday and that I am not at work. Sometimes I do get up, but that is to move myself from my bed to the sofa in the lounge to watch all the TV programmes my dearest mummy has recorded during the week. This was the first time on this trip that we have stayed in bed. HB had been sleeping in her parent’s room, so I wasn’t woken ridiculously early by her. F is almost a teenager so he will sleep till 1 if you let him. We were meant to be going on a tour that morning at 6am but Mr and Mrs G decided that that wasn’t a good idea. So we slept and slept and slept. I was awake by 9, not because I my body had had enough sleep but because the light woke me up. I have to sleep in total darkness. I can’t stand any light. It has to be dark. Very dark. At home in the summer when it gets light I have to fix a blanket that hangs from my top bunk to my bottom bunk to keep out any daylight that may come through my blackout curtains. Get the picture? So basically this room wasn’t dark.

As F was still fast asleep and showed no sign of life, I got up and got ready, then spent some time online (not doing my blog) but checking out Tokyo Disney in the hope that either I could have the day off and go there (Japan was our next destination, please don’t think that I was planning to hope on a plane and fly to Japan so that I could go to Disney for the day - that would be a bit far even for me), or go there with the children. I was hoping for the first. So I checked out what rides there were. Hurrah they have the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean! Whoop. Oh! Maybe not whoop. They would be shut till March. Oh poopie pants. At some time during my brousing F woke up and started to movie around the room. This made looking at the Tokyo Disney website rather tricky. Remember he has no clue where we are going at all, to him the next country we are going to is known only as Cold Country. So if he had seen me on the site then he MAY have guessed where we are going. I say MAY because he is a boy, and almost a teenage one, and they aren’t known for their intelligence. Ask my Mum - she will say the same thing (she works in a boy’s school - ugh - smelly boys).

By around 11:45 ish F decided he was hungry and went looking for his parents. I joined him a few minutes later, I thought it would be a good idea to look proactive rather than lazy, and what do I discover when I knock and go in. They are all still in their pjs and still in bed! What?! You mean I was looking proactive for nothing grrrr. It was decided that we should probably get up and have something to eat. Lunch would be a good idea seeing as by the time we had decided that it would be a good idea to get up and have something to eat it was past 12. F (fully dressed), M (in her pjs) and I (fully dressed) went ahead for lunch. What did we get? Breakfast! That was odd. Very odd. But, it is all food and all goes down the same way, so who cares.

Our afternoon activity for the day was to go to the Bayon. No that isn’t the same as the Bayou that you find in Louisiana. It is one of the temples that you get in Angkor. Mrs G decided to keep HB at the hotel with her. Mrs G did not like Cambodia. It has a very violent past. What with the Kamar Rouge and all the sacrifices that they made as Hindus 1000s of years ago. Mrs G is a Buddhist and she picks up on the ‘vibrations’ of places and people. And what she was feeling was making her feel sick. So she decided not to go out with us. Plus, looking back, it would not have been such a great experience for HB. She would have moaned about it all. So it was just Mr G, F and I that went. I am very glad that they said I could go as I found it fascinating. To get to this area we had to drive. But not in a car. In a Rotuk (a little like a tuk-tuk). Before we got to the temple we had to cross an old moat. 1000 years ago when this was in its prime the moat would have been filled with 300 crocodiles! The king put them there to keep out his enemies. Pity they aren’t there now they could feed on the annoying ‘fly-catchers’. It was a pretty impressive drawbridge. On one side they had demons and the other the gods all pulling on a huge snake.

The Bayon was in pretty good condition, seeing as it lay undiscovered for 600 years or there about. Depending on whom you believe, the French discovered it and had it restored. Or if you take the local sides, the French discovered it and they had the locals restore it without paying them (so they killed the Frenchman in charge)! Nice. Our guide gave us some very interesting facts about the place, but he constantly bombarded us with information and dates that it was very hard to keep any of the interesting thing in my head. It used to be a Buddhist temple, but when the new King came in and took over he changed it to Hindu. There are smiling Buddha’s carved everywhere, but if you look carefully, the new King had a 3rd eye carved on making them into one of the 3 main Hindu Gods. He did tell me, but I can’t remember which one it is. It could be Vishnu, but I would be lying if I said I was 100% sure. The stairs were a bit a killer, they were incredibly steep and small. They were built like this so that the climber had to bend down to walk up them, so that as they approached the King they were bowed over as a sign of respect. HB would have fallen up and down them multiple times. It really was a good thing she didn’t come.

I felt like I belonged in Tomb Raider or something. It was incredible. To think that they were building all these buildings without any modern technology. To be fair, if they tried to make it now you would never get it done. The quarry where the stones were cut was about 40km away and so each slab was pulled there by “workers”. What makes it an even greater feat of engineering was that there was no cement used to hold it together! They had a lock system where one slab was cut with a grove and the next one had a part to slot in there. Good thing that the area isn’t on a fault line or all those magnificent building would have been lost in one quake.

The next place we visited was an old palace, but very little of it was left. We had to drive there past these great fields, I really could have been driving through Hyde Park or 5 Elms (is that the name of the park where we used to have the church picnics Mummy?). Well the point is, I could have been back at home with the way it looked. There was even an ice cream van to remind me of home. There wasn’t much left of the palace, or not at least that we saw. All that we saw was a huge wall that used to be the King’s Hall where he met with his officials. The wall, now when I say wall I don’t mean a wall of a building that has been left standing. This was more like a wall around a castle that you could walk on, and the King held court on top of it. So the wall was covered in carvings of Gods or such. After 1000 years of weathering and jungle wear these carvings are worn away, as you could imagine. When they were excavating it they found 4 that had been covered up by stairs. These 4 looked like they were brand new and completely untouched by any of the elements. Apart from that there wasn’t much too see here. You were, however, mobbed by 100s of kids all shouting ’10 for 1 dollar’ or other things along that line. They really wouldn’t leave you alone. It didn’t matter if you said no thank you. F and I joked how that you could just imagine someone getting so irate with them that they snatch up what these people are trying to sell and breaking it. There was one boy who must have been younger that than HB trying to sell me a fan, and I really thought he was going to smack me with it if I didn’t buy it. Don’t worry I didn’t buy it; I just ignored him and hoped that he didn’t hit me.

Our rutuks were waiting to bring us home. It was wonderful to see these creations, they truly are magnificent.
to be continued...

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Photos

Angkor Wat
as we drove past

The demons
on the bridge

Main gate
It has a huge smiling Buddha at the top.

Croc filled Moat
although not any more :(

wall Carvings
In pretty good condition - these haven't been restored!

playing hide and seek
I am in there some where. It is like doing a Where's Wally puzzle.

Ah a huge spider
it was better from the other way.

Being Lara Croft
Although I guess I need to loss 1/2 the clothes.

Smilling Buddha
or a Hindu God.

Long dark passage ways
They liked their long dark passage ways. Although I didn't like the bats that pooed on you. Not that any got me.

Anyone for My Whippies?
A walk in Hyde Park

The view
from the Rutuk

loved the sign
careful Elephants

Comments

[Mum]

Elms, no, not Elves
Lovely blog. Pity no crocs - they could have feasted happily on people wanting to push their wares. Agree about boys, especially the smelly bit when they've been playing football during the lunch break. We used to picnic in High Elms (Country Park). Five Elms Road goes between what was Baston School and the main road! Happy blogging.