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Prasat Kravan 1
early 10th century Day 13 Sunday, January 25, 2009
Breakfast at our hostel was delightful. For $1 there was an all you can eat buffet of cereal, fresh fruit, toast, and pancakes along with tea, coffee, and juice. The man who ran the counter we named ‘Smiley’ for his permanent smile and perky demeanor. Actually, he was Little Smiley. Big Smiley was one of the waiters.
Our new best friend Rak picked us up at 9am to begin our second day of temple madness. Kim was really ill but determined not to miss out on the tour. The passes are only good for three consecutive days. Our first stop was Prasat Kravan, a small temple comprised of five towers. I dubbed it the ‘Georgian Temple’ due to its symmetry and simple elegant lines. I liked this one quite a lot. It was one of the oldest we had visited yet it somehow seemed more modern or just more ‘accessible’ than the other wildly decorated structures. And I was amazed to learn from my guidebook that the bricks were laid without mortar. They used a vegetable compound instead.
Our next stop was Banteay Kdei. Kim decided to sit this one out and
Prasat Kravan 2
Interior of the central tower, relief of Vishnu crossing the ocean stayed in the tuk-tuk . Banteay Kdei was a long string of one story temples, terraces, and galleries. There were no mountains of stairs to climb, so it was a nice stroll. I was so impressed by all the Cambodian tour guides leading tourists around, doling out the information in Spanish, English, French, German, and Japanese, just to name a few of the languages I heard them speaking. They weren’t the only multilingual Cambodians at the temples. The children selling souvenirs were also adept at giving their sales pitches in whatever language they thought you might speak. One little girl, who could not have been more than seven years old, counted out her pack of ten postcards in five different languages before I relented and bought them. We then made our way to Pre Rup, another mountain temple. Climbing all those stairs, which were at times nearly two feet high and only a few inches deep, in the blistering heat was arduous to say the least. But the views from the top were worth it.
Afterwards we went to one of the most unique temples, Neak Pean, or the Temple of Ponds. The small temple resides on a circular
Prasat Kravan 3
Interior of the central tower, relief of Vishnu and Garuda island in the middle of a large central square pond. At each side of the central pond are four smaller square ponds joined to the former by a small chapel. Inside the chapels were spouts in the shape of elephant heads where water from the central pond fed the smaller ones. It had been the rainy season when we were in Malaysia, but here it was the dry season. As such the ponds had very little water. There were a few dreary little lilies peeking out of sad little puddles, but that was about it. My favorite aspect of this temple was the two dragons that wrapped around the base of the island with their intertwined tails and heads at either end. Kim was fading fast and I think Cara was approaching temple burnout, so I walked around this one for the most part alone. I admit I was beyond hot and tired, but I was there to see some old stuff and I was going to see every square inch whether it killed me or not.
Our last stop of the day was Preah Khan. It was ginormous. According to my book, Preah Khan was once the location
Banteay Kdei 1
Face tower at the entrance, late 12th and early 13th centuries of a university with over 1,000 teachers in addition to being the site of a temple and city. There were a staggering amount of small buildings and enclosures, ponds, galleries, terraces, bridges, and colonnades. We did not cover this one as thoroughly as we would have had it been our first stop of the day, but what I saw of it was impressive. It was here that I purchased another set of postcards from a little boy whose doe eyes and mournful pitch had been too much to resist. This prompted an older girl nearby (who had tried to sell me her cards earlier) to go into a tirade. She called me a “bad woman”. No, she didn’t just call me a bad woman. She screamed it. Over and over again. I could still hear her in the distance as we made our way back to Rak. She didn’t seem genuinely angry. It was more a ploy to make me feel guilty. But I still felt bad. These kids should be out playing or, better yet, going to school. Not pushing cheap souvenirs.
After five temples in five and a half hours in the merciless sun and with dust
in every crevice (I know, ew) we were pooped. We went back to our hostel for a well deserved nap. We then went out of another top notch Western dinner. I loved the restaurants in Siem Reap! It was so nice to eat ‘real’ food.
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Trish
non-member comment
OMG
The pic of those kids in the basket is priceless!