Blogs from Angkor, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 13

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Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor June 29th 2011

Cambodia, our 4th and last country on this Indochina leg of our trip, is a country of extreme contrasts. It shares similar history with the adjoining countries involving wars over borders and conquests. In fact, until the 14th century, Cambodia’s Khmer rulers were the strongest rulers of large parts of both Thailand, Laos and Vietnam as well. Today is a different story of a country hosting both an iconic world treasure at Angkor Wat and recovering from the devastation of the Khmer Rouge years and the Killing Fields of Pol Pot. We arrived in the capital, Phnom Penh, after an eight hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. The French architectural legacy, combined with the Cambodian Royal Palace buildings, contributes to a very attractive city at the confluence of three rivers. We immediately took to ... read more
Phnom Penh from the river
Foreign Correspondent Club,
recovered parts in a shrine

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor May 16th 2011

Well, I've just got back from the most amazing place on earth it would seem. The Angkor Wat, I huge 10km site built with amazing detail, purpose and meaning to Buddhism. I woke at 4:30am to meet the two Germans that I travelled to Siem Reap with to see the sun rise over the temple. To be honest not the greatest sunrise I've seen but the temple it's self is superb. Buddhists can be seen around the temple and the greater city of Angkor Thom, which contains the many temples wrapped with vines and trees like in the Thomb Raider Movie is a photographers heaven. It's really peaceful even in the tourist traps the worst part is at the Tuk Tuk stops when your are surrounded by local children begging for money or to buy there ... read more
Enormous
Where is Indi
Temple Shrine

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor May 6th 2011

Day 2 was a little different, morning time we decided to visit Bantrey Sei, a temple located a fair distance out from the others but it is allegedly one of the best preserved. On the way back we combined the trip to Bantrey with a trip to the landmine museum which is only just down the road. As this is a fair hike out in a tuk tuk, we throw Cameron a some extra dollars and off we go. This side of Siem Reip is very different from the route to the floating village. The houses here are much more better constructed, some of them resembling villas or small farm houses. Rice farming is the game here and the paddies line each side of the road and populated with the occasional water buffalo, its scene ... read more
Bantrey Sei
Leaving the temples
Lost track of which temple this was!

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor April 22nd 2011

doing as temples do, there is lots of sitting around being very old and falling apart.. and in being this way inclined it makes them very hard things to write about.. so i spent two days cycling around the temples of Angkor which was a bum bruising experience indeed! but a picture is worth a thousand words? so here are many thousand words on the topic.. =) NOTE: there are two pages of pictures.. make sure you click page two at the bottom!... read more
Photo 3
Photo 4
Photo 5

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor April 14th 2011

It was a late start today after a restless nights sleep in the muggy Cambodian heat. David had told me that it was unseasonably cool for the time of year, with temperatures usually reaching the low to mid forties with humidity. I felt like I hadn't done anything active for weeks so after a quick TRX workout in my room I headed down stairs for breakfast. I ordered a bacon and cheese omelette and was presented with a perfectly fluffy omelette filled with what seemed like an entire pack of bacon. It tasted great and was accompanied by a freshly baked baguette from the local bakers. While I was having breakfast Perry, Charlie's older brother, came and said hello and told me he'd be my driver for the day. I was pleased as Charlie had had ... read more

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor April 13th 2011

Getting up at 3am is never a nice experience. Getting up at 3 am in order to face one of the days you have been least looking forward to already just makes it even worse. It was therefore with much reluctance that we got up and headed down to the Tuk Tuk waiting to take us to the train station. Now, we had seen many things in the guidebook explaining that the best way to make it to the border without much hassle (until you get there) is to do it by yourself. This way you can avoid the hassle of getting stuck on iffy transport and being overcharged. Whilst we knew there would be some amount of overcharging paying 200 Baht for two 20 Baht train tickets and a Tuk Tuk drive really was a ... read more
Bakong
Preah Khan
Neak Pean

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor February 26th 2011

Our bus pulled into Siem Reap at about 3pm. Its the hottest ever, I think about 38 celcius before the humidex. Mr. Lucky, our hilarious Tuk Tuk driver from Phnom Penh called his 'Brother' John in Siem Reap to let him know we were coming. He's going to give us a 'free' tuk tuk ride to our hotel. He's at the bus station, as promised, with our names neatly written on a board, which is a nice touch. He does the usual TukTuk driver special and tries to get us to go to his hotel (or, the hotel where he gets a cut). I had emailed another hotel to reserve a room and the hotel confirmed, so I got John to bring us there first. "We'll check it out and if we need to switch, we'll ... read more
Our view of Phnom Bakheng
Sunset 'over' Angkor Wat
Crouds of People!!!

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor February 22nd 2011

Heute steht vormittags die „Große Hauptstadt“ – Angkor Thom – auf dem Plan. Hier haben früher eine Million Menschen gelebt. In der Anlage selbst natürlich nur der König, sein Hofstaat, die Priester, die Beamten und Bürokraten, abgegrenzt durch eine drei Kilometer lange Mauer und einen 100 Meter breiten Wassergraben vom einfachen Volk, das vor den Mauern wohnen durfte. Durch fünf Tore gelangte man in das Innere der Anlage. Über den Tordurchgängen waren in allen vier Himmelsrichtungen die Gesichter von Bodhisattva Lokeshvara angebracht. Und wie sollte es anders sein, diese sahen dem König Jayavarman VII. total ähnlich. So ein Zufall. Vor den Toren sind links des Wegs 54 Devas (Gottheiten) und rechts des Wegs 54 Asuras (Dämonen) aufgestellt. Jeder sieht im Gesicht anders aus, soweit sie noch erhalten sind. Auf dem Gelände finden wir den Bayon (Tempelberg ... read more
Ein Tor mit Gesichtern und den flankierenden Dämonen
Bayon: Überall neugierige Gesichter
Ein Buddha auf dem Gipfel des Bayon.

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor February 21st 2011

„Solange der König lebt, ist er Lebensspender und Wächter über die Geschicke seiner Untertanen. Nach seinem Tod wird er zu ihrem göttlichen Beschützer.“ Und Angkor Wat ist ein eindrucksvolles und das bekannteste Zeugnis dafür. Angkor Wat wurde von dem damaligen König Suryavarman II. in Auftrag gegeben und in der Zeit von 1113 bis 1150 als „heiliger Wohnsitz von Vishnu“ erbaut. Und wenn man schon so etwas Großartiges erbaut (die ganzen kleinen unwichtigen Helfer lassen wir mal außen vor), dann kann man sich als Herrscher schon mit dem Gott Vishnu gleichsetzen. In dieser Tempelanlage Vrah Vishnulok - “ die königliche Stadt, die ein Kloster ist“ wurde Suryavarman II. auch beigesetzt. Ein paar Könige später wurde das Gelände dann dem Zeitgeist entsprechend dem Buddhismus geweiht und das Wort Kloster auch gleich in Wat (thai) umbenannt. Wir nähern uns ... read more
Reliefs im Eingangsbereich
(wohlgeformte ;-)) Tänzerinnen
Sonnenaufgang über dem Tempelberg

Asia » Cambodia » North » Angkor February 20th 2011

Heute ist unser erster Tempeltag. Mit dem Tuk-Tuk geht es irgendwo in den Urwald. Der heutige Urwald ist hier nicht ganz so, wie man ihn sich beim Lesen des Dschungelbuches vorstellt, eher etwas trocken und staubig, irgendwie nicht mal so urwaldig wie unser heimatlicher Laubwald und doch wieder ganz urwüchsig und wild. Die Geräusche sind jedenfalls fremd und laut und manchmal schaut man sich doch zweimal um, wenn es auf einmal laut aufgackert und vielleicht irgendwo noch etwas herunterfällt. Nach einem kurzen Spaziergang durch Urwald und den nicht auszublendenden Verkaufsständen der Einheimischen, die jedes aufkeimende Urwaldfeeling sofort mit: You want cold drink, you want pineapple, you want a book, you want a Tuk-Tuk - Nein, wollen wir nicht, jetzt noch nicht, wir haben schon eins, wir sind gerade erst angekommen. Auf jeden Fall ist es ein ... read more
Ausrüstungscheck - Alles beisammen
Was hinter dieser Tür wohl wartet?
schöne Stuckelemente




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