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Published: January 24th 2020
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We certainly did all our steps today, all 6000 of them, climbing up to Wat Phu Tok a temple at the top of 'lonely mountain' 359m high up very rickety steep steps. The temple is in a wide open cave at the top, actually level 5 on the map, so not quite at the top.
The skeleton of the original monk is there in a glass cabinet. Jeremy and Waree's son Adam (15) was our guide. He's been up lots of times. Jeremy was OK to walk up but coming down is a bit hard on the knees.
A kindly monk recommended we turn right and go the scenic route when we were almost got to the top. Ha!! It was the one that goes round the mountain by way of a fragile-looking wooden walkway that no person in their right mind would dare to navigate. We went right and held our breath. Under overhanging rocks. Avoiding wobbly boards and walking on the nails. Relying on the handrails would not have saved you. They were just as precarious. Sticks really. Looking out over the countryside far, far below.
Goodness knows how they built it.
We made it.
Up another set of steps, round a bit and there it was. Under a huge overhang. The floor is beautifully tiled.
We kept going around. Extraordinary formations. White, hanging, skeletal leaves looked like bird droppings but were hanging by spider threads I think. They looked like silver birch leaves and were surrounded by the buzzing of hundreds of tiny bee-like insects. We had to duck to avoid them.
Then came rows of statues of 62 seated monks under another long overhang, watching as visitors passed by.
We carried on, avoiding a family of monkeys, to another outcrop reached by a joining walkway and another, more well built bridge this time, over a chasm. I let Adam and Ian go over.
I returned to wait by the temple while Ian and Adam continued up and around more rickety walkways to the top.
Then came the descent, not easy but we made it by stepping down sideways and clinging to the handrails. Today our thigh muscles paying the price.
Another stop we made was at another temple by the Mekong and here it was so evident how low the water level has dropped. Rocks that Jeremy
Some steps were stone
these were easier to walk up, and down. has never seen before were sitting well out of the water. Apparently with so many dams in China they are controlling the water level to the detriment of fishers downstream in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
This part of the river flows over a sandstone ridge, hence the boulders in the river and in the adjoining landscape. Interesting huge shapes emerge out of the ground. A quirky sight is where Thai people have put tiny sticks under these huge rocks to seemingly hold them up. Unusual plants and creepers surround them making us think of the vanished schoolgirls from Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Jeremy has lots of different apps on his phone, one of them being Plantnet where you just take a photo of an unusual plant and the app will identify it. He is a real geek. Their home is controlled with Google Home - cameras here and in Perth, music, photos, irrigation etc. He speaks "hey Google" and asks whatever he wants to know and Google answers in an Australian accent. I have that on my phone but haven't really used it. I guess it's like Siri on an Apple.
Today and tomorrow left to work
on our paintings. Getting there. And tomorrow we pack again to fly on Sunday for our last stop with Agata and boys in Phnom Penh. We thought it would be easier if we could just float down the Mekong....
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