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Published: January 16th 2007
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Ta Prohm Temple
Doing our impersonation of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Our guide Som arrived precisely at 07:30 am and started our day’s journey at Bayon Temple. It was built in the 12th century by Jayavaman VII as a Buddhist Temple. It is famous for its giant stone faces on 37 towers, most with 4 faces on each. The entry gate was very impressive with a row of good and bad lion figures stretched out on both sides of the roadway. For $10.00 USD, you can ride an elephant from the gate about 1 km. to the Bayon Temple sight.
The Bayon Temple was already crammed with tourists, so Som suggested that we walk around the outside of the temple and return to visit inside later in the day.
We passed the Terrace of the Elephants, a 2 ½ meter tall and 300 meter long terrace wall adorned with carved elephants and garuda birds. We also passed Baphuon and Phimeanakas Temples before stopping at Angkor Thom for a quick photo. This was a Buddhist Temple from the early 13th century.
We finally arrived at Ta Prohm Temple, a Buddhist Temple and monastery constructed by Jayavarman VII in dedication to his mother during the mid-12th through early 13th centuries. This
temple was intentionally left in a partially overgrown, unrestored state with massive fig and silk-cotton trees growing from the towers and corridors, offering some of the best “tree-in-temple” photo ops at Angkor. The interesting nature meets temple architecture makes it easy to see why “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” was filmed here.
On the walk back to the parking lot, Som explained how from 1988 - 1992, he worked as one of the tourist police who tried to guard the temples from robbers during the Khmer Civil War. They actually placed land mines around the temple’s perimeter to try and protect it. We passed a local band made up of about 12 disabled tourist police who lost limbs to the land mines. There are still projects on-going throughout Siem Reap in an effort to rid the landscape of remaining land mines and unexploded bomb shells and hand grenades. The main tourist areas have been cleared, but it is highly recommended to stay on pathways and avoid walking in the forested areas or through any underbrush.
We continued back to Bayon, where it was much less crowded since most of the tour buses were gone. Som had us climb up
onto the rampart wall for an amazing up close view of the gate faces and an overlook of lions avenue. We entered the Bayon Temple and enjoyed the extensive bas relief carvings on the exterior lower level walls. They included revealing scenes of everyday life of the Khmer people. There were market scenes, cockfighting, chess games and childbirth all carved with incredible detail. There were also battle scenes featuring Chinese and Muslim people.
The upper levels were reached by steep staircases bringing us face to face with the large stone carvings believed to represent the 4 Buddhas: compassion, love, charity and empathy. It was neat to explore all of the hidden chambers between the towers and see how the inside of each tower face was a hollow arch extending upward.
After that, it was time for a well deserved lunch at the same restaurant we ate in yesterday. Our same waiter greeted us warmly and presented us with a lovely fresh fruit plate at the end of our meal.
Our next stop was Artisans d’Angkor, a school where students 18 - 24 yrs. Old learn the ancient Khmer arts of stone carving, wood carving, wood patina and
silk screening. They use the traditional style used on the temples, where a pattern is used to follow, so that all pieces come out virtually the same. They also had a reasonably priced gift shop featuring the handmade carvings, some which can take up to 2 weeks to complete.
From there we drove about 10 km. to board a private staffed wooden boat with cushioned chairs and long shallow draft outboard motors, for our visit to Tonle Sap floating village. This was a fascinating look at local village life. The houses attached to the mainland were built on stilts of simple bamboo and wooden construction. These homes are moved as necessary during the rainy season, because the road area is flooded by the lake. We actually witnessed them packing up an entire house into the back of a pickup truck, to move closer to the lake for the current dry season. While walking down to the boat, we walked past an outdoor grill selling what looked and smelled like sausage. However, upon closer inspection we realized it was snake (YUM)!
The floating village itself consisted of tin, wood and bamboo houses built on top of bamboo rafts tied
together. Stores were in wooden boats that paddled around the village making house calls. We saw the fruit boat, the pharmacy boat, the candy store boat, sugar cane boat, toy boat (no pun intended), etc. We also saw the floating machine shop and schools funded by Japan and Korea. The local people were going about their daily business of cooking, cleaning, washing dishes and clothes, and lazing away the afternoon in their hammocks. Small children waved to us as we floated by, but most adults seemed immune to the large numbers of tour boats sailing past.
We reached the large lake which extends past Phnom Phenh about 200 km south and across about 100 km. It is about the size of Lake Michigan. Women in small boats paddled feverishly to try and catch up with the motorized tour boats in the hopes of selling fruit or soft drinks to the tourists.
We stopped at a little floating restaurant and shop at the edge of the lake. They had cages of black catfish and alligators that came from the lake. We also saw 2 little boys, one missing an arm, paddling around in tin tubs, yelling out to the
tourists to get their attention, in the hopes they would toss them some money for a photo op.
On the way back down river, we noticed 2 floating catholic churches and a large sign indicating the village supports the Cambodian People’s Party.
We chuckled when out boat returned. It looked like there was no place to park it, but our boat driver just wedged the nose of the boat between two others and then pushed them apart. As we hopped off the boat, they showed us souvenir plates with our picture on them for $5.00 USD each. They were cute, but none of us were looking at the camera when they snapped the photo.
We drove to the end of the floating village road, where Som and I climbed the steep staircase and uphill hike to Phnom Krom to see 3 Buddhist tower ruins, in relatively poor condition, dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma. They were built in the late 9th to early 10th centuries by Yasovarman I. It took us about 45 minutes to reach the top, whereby I walked off a portion of my cruise consumed calories. While the ruins were not all that spectacular,
the bird’s eye view of the Tonle Sap area were. We were also in time for the sunset, which provided some nice photo ops.
It took us less time on the descent and we spoke about the democratic style government with elections, parliament and a prime minister. They also have a king who serves primarily as a figure head.
The others who stayed behind in the van, enjoyed the village life scenes they witnessed, including cattle herded through the village.
Our last tour stop was at the old market in Siem Reap town for some souvenir stall shopping just prior to closing time. It also gave the boys a chance to sit and enjoy a 50 cent beer.
We bid a fond farewell to Som, and got washed up for our Christmas Eve dinner in town. We found our faithful tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Samut waiting for us in front of the hotel and we headed off to Pub Street. We were in the mood for pizza, so ended up at World Lounge, which uses the Hard Rock design logo. The waiters and waitresses were dressed in Merry Xmas santa hats. We ordered individual pizzas that took
over 2 hours to arrive. We found out that their pizza oven could only handle 2 pizzas at a time and the restaurant was very crowded with almost everyone ordering pizza. At least the beer was ice cold and plentiful while we waited and the pizza was delicious !
An uneventful tuk-tuk ride took us back to the hotel for a well deserved night’s rest.
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