Deckers in Thailand: More Temples!!!

Saturday was another temple-filled day. We started this day by traveling about an hour outside of Siem Reap to a small temple called Banteay Srei. The interesting thing about this temple is the delicacy of the carvings. This has lead to some people saying that the carving must have been done by a woman because a man can’t carve so delicately. I’m sure that there are some men who would disagree with that reasoning but I liked the idea that there may be a great woman artisan who was part of this amazing place. The doorways in this temple got progressively smaller as you moved towards the center of the temple. In the picture of me at Banteay Srei, the doorway on my right is only tall enough for a small child. Because of the reduced dimensions, this temple made me think of a doll house. The other picture shows some of the carvings at Banteay Srei.

On the way to and from Banteay Srei, we stopped a few times to get pictures of the people in the communities along the way. In Thailand, tractors have almost entirely replaced oxen but as you can see from the picture, oxen are still used in Cambodia. In the other picture, you can see one method of catching a fish. This woman waded through the shallow pond, sunk the cage into the mud when she saw a fish and then reaches through the hole in the top to pull out the fish. She had caught a few fish and proudly showed them to Karl.

Our next stop was the temple Pre Rup which has a temple-mountain with a view over the rice fields and neighboring villages.

We climbed to the top and enjoyed the view. Here is a picture from the top of the temple. Many of the temples have lion statues over looking the stairs. We’ve noticed that all the lions are missing their faces. We aren’t sure if it is just coincidence or on purpose. With Cambodia’s tumultuous past the damage is just as likely to have been caused by humans rather than natural events.

After getting some lunch we returned to Angkor Thom the walled city where the Bayon temple is located. Karl wanted to get some pictures of the Bayon faces as the sun was setting. It was still early afternoon so we walked around the nearby Baphuon temple. This temple is in the middle of reconstruction and wasn’t open to tourists. However you could walk around the grounds and look at the rows and rows of blocks that would make up the temple.

The restoration work had started on this temple before the Cambodian civil war shut it down. 25 years later, the records were destroyed and it is a big jigsaw puzzle!

As the afternoon progressed, we made our way to Bayon and climbed to the upper terrace. By this time, I was a bit sunburnt and my arms were bright red. As we walked through a group of Thai tourists at Bayon, one woman reached out, touched my arm, laughed and said something to her friends. So, with my bright red skin I became a tourist attraction! We saw the Cambodian dancers again and Karl got a few more pictures of them. He also got some nice pictures of the Bayon faces. We have posted additional pictures at: Cambodia And there are more that we haven't uploaded yet!

After 3 long days, we were ready for a break so Sunday we just hung out at our hotel room and watched a few movies. It has actually been quite hot here and so the AC in our hotel room was very much appreciated. Karl attempted to go out and take a few pictures around the hotel, but he didn’t last long!

After our day of rest in Cambodia, Karl was anxious to get out and take some pictures. We decided however that it was too hot to be outside in the middle of the afternoon. So, we begana routine

of going out in the morning and then again in the late afternoon. It was still hot but at least we got a break from the heat in the middle of the day when we returned to our air conditioned hotel room.

Monday morning, Karl got up really early and went to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. I opted to stay in bed. The sunrise at Angkor Wat attracts a lot of photographers and I suspected that there would be a bunch of photographers there fighting for the best position to get a picture of the temple. From what Karl describes my suspicions were correct. Apparently, some of the photographers would get pretty annoyed if anyone got in front of their camera even if just for a second. And this was when they were just waiting for the sun to come up. As you can see, Karl managed to get some good pictures and didn’t get into trouble with any of his fellow photographers.

Back at the hotel, Karl took advantage of the hotel balcony that overlooked the street. From this vantage point, Karl was able to take several pictures of people as they went past. He was able to capture this picture showing one of the many ways that people use motorcycles. Some of the things they do to enable them to carry various things on a motorcycle are quite amazing. As we drove around in Cambodia we often found ourselves doing double-takes as we passed by these unusual devices.

For our late afternoon outing, we returned to Phnom Bakheng. When we went to this temple on our first day, the lighting for taking pictures of Angkor Wat wasn’t the best. So, this time we went a bit earlier in the afternoon. Without the crowds of tourists causing distractions for us, we noticed that the lions at the base of the hill had faces. So, I have to recant my earlier statement that all the lions are missing their faces. In the picture, you can also see what remains of the ancient stairway up the hill. The path that wound around the hill is a much safer option and the walk up the hill is also very nice with trees creating a shady canopy and crickets singing. Since we were early, we actually had the path to ourselves some of the time and we walked slowly to fully savor the solitude.

When Karl is taking pictures he likes to spend some time and tries pictures from many different angles. He really loves his new digital because he can see what the picture looks like right after he takes it. All of this means that I still have a wait even after I’ve wandered through the entire temple and read the guidebook. So, I’ve used the time to write in my journal. It can be very relaxing sitting in a shady corner of a one-thousand year old temple writing about the events of the day. That is until I feel like I’m being watched and look over my shoulder to see a complete stranger peering into my journal. It happened several times and made me wonder if they thought I was writing about them! So, the first picture is me with my journal at Phnom Bakheng, the second is Karl with his camera plastered to his face and the one below is Angkor Wat. With more light, the picture is a lot more detailed than the previous one.