Day 75: lessons from shiva (exploring the temples)

---

Bike rentals and a map and off we go to explore the temples of Angkor. The goals today were to buy our passes, make it to Ta Prohm, Bayon and Angkor Wat, and back to Siem Reap before nightfall. Today, I am happy to say that we asked for directions at all the right times, trusted people instead of what the internet told us, and had some shear good luck: we did all things without getting lost. We even got to add in Srah Srang water reserve, Chrung Palace, and the Elephant Terrace. Cambodia receives 90% of its rainfall in 6 months of the year. This made agriculture during the dry months nearly impossible. What made the Angkor region successful was its ability to master the water. They built huge reservoirs (like 7 kilometers by 4 kilometers), irrigation trenches and personal ponds to expand their farming capacity. Srah Srang was a small example of one of these reservoirs. Elephant Terrace is huge walkway beautifully engraved with history and stories of the past and surrounded by statues of hindu gods and yes elephants. The walkway makes a "T" and leads to Chrung Palace. The Palace was incredible in elaborate decorative carving and its symmetry. It was crazy to sit at the top and think about all the activity that would have been going on around the palace in its building stage and prime. Bayon is the temple of a faces. It was built by Jayavarman VII who was the first Mahayana Buddhist King of Angkor and he wanted to convert the Angkor people from Hindu to Buddhist and refortify it against invasion. Therefore, he built more structures than every other king before him combined. Everywhere you stood there were several faces staring back towards you. By the time we reach Angkor, we had made it 5 hours into temples and were pretty hot and tired. But none of that could take away from the shear size and architectural perfection of this temple. It was constructed under King Suryavarman II during the early 12th century. It is considered one of the largest religious monuments in the world (the moat surrounding the temple is more than 5 kilometers in perimeter). However, my favorite was Ta Prohm. Since I am almost out of words, I will be brief: it represents the conflict and interconnectedness between nature and human development, creation from chaos and the earth taking back what is its.

---

Photos

I can resist or give into creation from chaos
...the earth will move, give and take back.