Temple Fever!

First of all, we wanted to thank everyone for following us on this great adventure and for leaving so many touching (and funny) comments for us. As internet connectivity is spotty, at best, and we have such precious little time, it’s pretty difficult to get back to each and every one of you. So, to all of our friends and family, we just wanted to thank you for keeping in touch with us via this blog. Thank you all for supporting us and encouraging us to make this unbelievable adventure a reality. We are so looking forward to seeing you all in person and sharing with you all the fantastic experiences we’ve had… and showing you even more pictures of the astounding things we’ve seen upon our return.

Okay…so if you thought yesterday was astounding, today was just trumped it! First of all, Jayavarman VII was a non-stop builder. The guy honored himself with a pretty sweet temple (Angkor Wat) and then he moved on to one for his mother (Ta Prohm) and then he made one for his people (Angkor Thom). The guy was the Donald Trump of Khmer!

We started the day off by taking a drive out to Bantay Srei, an exquisite temple from the 10th century that is replete with fantastic stone carvings of the Ramayana. Finally a series of temples not built by our good friend, the construction-obsessed Jayavarman VII! Bantay Srei is a temple dedicated to Shiva…it is rumored that the temple was made by women because men weren’t capable of such nice and intricate carvings (good to know that even back then it took a woman to do a man’s job.) The stone in this temple is much different from the stone in other temples we saw, as Jayavarman VII made his temples from sandstone taken from Kulen Mountain. The quality of the construction is reflected in how well the carvings in the temple have held up - it allows visitors like us to soak in the amazing story of the Khmer people, who seemed to revel in spiritual worship and dancing. We put this in contrast with the Hindus, who seemed to revel in worshipping the Linga. (Remember, it’s not the size of the Linga that counts…it’s how you worship it!)

After Bantay Srei, Dara took us to one of the six schools he and his sister Ponheary, (along with the help of two Americans from Texas who started their non-profit organization) have helped build. The school is made up of 3 barely-standing buildings and, although they are adding additional classrooms and renovating, it’s nothing like any of us have ever seen. These kids are lucky if they even make it to school—it’s not customary to go every day, as sometimes they are required to be at home and work to make money for their families. But their spirit is infectious. Upon arrival, the students were ushered from playing in the yard into their classrooms and we went room to room to visit different grades. They were very curious about these new Western visitors and couldn’t help but get up our of their seats and come over to investigate our camera. Remember we said that we weren’t coming home with a kid? Let’s just say that we understand Angelina Jolie better than ever.  You just want to take one of these kids and show them a better life.

Cambodia is a very poor country, and going to school is a privilege. One of the things that was very important to us in Cambodia was getting a modern history of the Cambodian people. It’s why we went to the Floating Village at Tonle Sap, it’s why we asked so many questions about Cambodian culture, government, and politics, and it’s absolutely encapsulated in why we asked Dara to take us to a school. Dara explained to us that Pol Pot devastated the Cambodian people by taking everything away from them - he said the importance of sending every kid to school is to give every child something they could use later in their lives. The average price to send a child to school is $12 a year. People are so poor that even that is too much money - that’s why there is such an emphasis on encouraging the international community to help…it really makes you want to do something about it once you’ve witnessed it first-hand.

After visiting the school, we headed over to Bantay Kdei, a monastery built at the tail end of the 12th century and then had the privilege of walking through the temple Jayavarman VII made for his father called Preah Khan. It’s is still in pretty amazing shape…an endless stretch of corridors and dancing halls fit for a King (or a King’s father!) The name Preah Kahn means “sacred sword”, although we really couldn’t tell you why. The one strange thing about Preah Khan is this random Greek Parthenon looking building near the East Gate of the Temple - no one knows why they built it.

Next up was Neak Pean…a place of healing in the form of magic. After a long walk up, we came upon four pools surrounding one big pool. Each of the small pools represented one of the four elements of the earth. If one was sick with a fire affliction, they would take a dip in the fire pool and be healed by the magic contained within. If the healing process was ineffective, the sick could stay within the confines of the temple until the magic healed them.

From Neak Pean, we traveled to Mebon, another remarkable temple, guarded at all 4 corners by perfectly preserved stone elephants. We ran into a very overzealous Frenchie here who fancied himself the next Diane Arbus. He got really ticked off at Billy when he got in the way of what must’ve been his piece-de-resistance…a snapshot of his wife (although don’t ask us which one was the man) sitting against a rock. He rejoined his tour group and followed us down the temple stairs…on the way down, David tripped and almost broke his leg. Now I’m not saying that there’s any connection there, but the B.O. trail coming from the guy’s group was enough to wake the dead…let’s just leave it at that.

For what was to be our last outing with Dara, we had the absolute privilege of experiencing sunset from the top of Pre Rup temple. Cambodians think Pre Rup may have served as an ancient sacred crematorium, and it, like Mebon, consisted of a base of four towers surrounding a center, higher tower. Perched on the top of the center tower, we sat with what was basically a United Nations of tourists (thankfully only 1/10 the amount of people we were with at Phnom Bakheng the day before) and watched the sun drop below the horizon of a gorgeous vista of rice fields.

For dinner, our new friend Trish (who we met while at the Old Bangkok Inn on our 2nd day) invited us to a dinner at her hotel, FCC, which used to be the old Foreign Correspondents’ Club. It’s quite beautiful! The place is basically a modern retake of old French colonial style architecture (part of the old building still remains.) Imagine a cross between old-school New Orleans and the Standard in LA. It’s really stunning! Trish is from Dublin and a completely wonderful and fascinating woman! You know when you meet people and you feel like you’ve know them all your life? Trish is one of those people…just instantly makes you feel at home. We had one of the most incredibly interesting conversations with her and spent almost 4 hours at dinner…if it hadn’t been for our early flight in the morning, we literally could’ve spent all night talking. It’s so nice to meet people that you know you’ll know for a long time to come.

We walked back to our hotel to get a few hours’ rest before heading off for the next leg of our journey.

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