Today was going to be a busy day, as we will be doing the grand tour, consisting of 8 temples along with our usual routine of sunrise at Angkor Wat. Hence, we were up early again. Since Angkor Wat does not require tough climbing, we only left the guesthouse at about 5 something. Hence, prayed really hard for the sun to show up.
Surprisingly even at five thirty in the drizzly rain, tourists have already crowded the temple. As the time pass on more and more tourists arrived. Along with them, we eagerly waited for the sun to rise. We waited and waited and waited till it was 6.30 am. The whole place was brightening up but there was no sign on sunny boy. Sigh! Another day, another disappointment! With very sore feeling, we headed to our grand tour beginning with the very first temple located 20 km away from Angkor Wat, Banteay Srei.
The Beautiful Pink Temple!
From all 8 temples only Banteay Srei and Banteay Samrei are located 20km away from Angkor Thom, bypassing the beautiful paddy village. The people lived in poverty yet there were smile on their face. The children were running happily on the courtyard, cows, pigs and hen lays on the side of the house, adults were on the paddy field and group of monks walking house to house getting their food supply. Unlike the spoilt greedy people of Angkor Wat, this was the real Cambodian.
Situated in the middle of the villages near the hill of Phnom Dei was Banteay Srei, built in 967 A.D. by Yajnyavahara, who served as a counsellor to king Rajendrawarman. The temple looked rather small from the outside and all ruin. Nevertheless, the entrance door of the temple was engraved with beautiful carving and it leads to 67 m long walkway to another magic door, where we encountered the most beautiful gopuras with breath taking carving of Hindu god and goddess on the red sandstone. The carving, though being almost 1000 years old, looked as if it was carved yesterday. Hence, to preserve it, visitors are restricted to enter the temple ground. The beautiful glows of red sand stone structure in contrast with the rustic orange sand and the tall pinkish wall making it looking more like glowing fort.
The paddy village near the hill of Phnom Dei, 20 km away from Angkor Wat
A typical Kampung house in the paddy field.
Lady selling local dishes at road side
It taste a little like lepat pisang ..yummy
The Main Entrance of Banteay Srei 
ME, another window frame picture-ruin library of Banteay Srei
The beautiful pink gopuras' of Banteay Srei
The front view..
The side view
Beautiful carving on the pink shaded gopuras
..i think its vishnu avtar!
ME sitting on the window frame
A beautiful little girl sitting in similar position drawing pictures ..she gave me one!
The Maze Temple.
From Banteay Srei, we headed on the opposite direction to Banteay Samre. Unlike Banteay Srei, Banteay Samrei was built on higher ground that was linked by the 200 m long walkway. We climbed up to the tinny entrance that was linked with 6m tall lacterite walls that served as the pathway. The 3 gopuras stood in the middle surrounded by dry man-made-pond that was connected to the four corner of wall by tinny narrow stairs. The structure of the temple, the color and the maze like walkway, made the temple very gloomy and dark. The walkways looked alike and were indeed confusing. Hence, we walked all around, coming in and out from different gopuras entrances till we failed to see the beautiful carving of Ramayana.
The entrance of the Banteay Samrei on higer ground
Opps...where is the rest of my body? The only part of the god statute left behind!
The surrounding wall cum walkway
US standing at the walkway
Name is bond...shuba bond...ME ..another window picture...
The second entrance to the gopuras of Banteay Samrei
The side view of the gopuras of Banteay Samrei
Temples and Temples and More Temples.
We continued our journey to 4 other temple East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Pean and Preah Khan all situated in the surrounding of Angkor Thom. The first was the East Mebon, built in 953 A.D. by King Rajendravarman appears to be one of my favorites. It’s a very huge temple in the shades gray looking similar to Phnom Bahkeng. It is a 3-tier building with 2 lion kept at the entrance and huge 2-meter elephant at all corner of second and third tire. Above, there is a central tower on a square platform, surrounded by four smaller towers at the platform’s corners all in the shade of silver gray.
The beautiful huge East Mebon temple entrance
The huge lion at the entrance of the temple
Akka and me leaning on the jolly looking elephant
ME and ele
From there we headed to another beautiful temple deep in the jungle of Siem Reap. Ta Som is a small temple in the similar shades of gray and had a huge 4 smiley faced gopuras arch, just like Angkor Thom. Unlike other temples, Ta Som was all ruined and was unable to get into the temple ground. It’s a pity as the outer wall of the temple itself was engraved with beautiful carving, wonder what lies beneath. Nevertheless the attraction of the temple lies on the straggler fig that has dominated the whole arch exit, looking more like secret passage to a magical cave.
The similar four smiley face arch entrance at Ta Som
CLose shot of the face.
The entrance to the inner Ta Som temple
The carvings of Devatas on the outter wall structure
Another straggler fig at the exit ....was filmed in Thom Raider as well.
We then proceeded to Neak Pean. It takes approximately 100m long pathways that adjoin the main temple in dark gray with no wall, no door and no window. Here, the main gopura is positioned in the middle of the main pond, which was then connected to all four gigantic pond represent Water, Earth, Fire and Wind. The ancients believed that going into these pools would balance the elements in the bather, thus curing disease. In the middle of the four healing ponds is the central water source, where there is the main gopura facing peculier statue of Bahala (Bodisavatta Guan Yin transformed into a horse). However the beauty of the dried pond could not highlight the beauty of the temple or the figurine, as the temple has been reconstruct un orderly.
The main temple at the central pond
From there we headed to our very last stop, Preah Khan. The temple is so huge; we entered from one entrance and come out from another. Built in 12 century, it was the centre of a substantial organisation, with almost 100,000 officials and servants Similar to Angkor Thom, this temple had the similar four-face smiley face gopura arch and similar statue of gods and demons on the both side of the entrance pulling the serpents. However, the statues here were all ruined and missing head. The outer laterite wall of Preah Khan carved with 72 garudas holding nagas, at 50 m intervals.
Unlike other temple, despites having beautiful, carving on the wall, most of the structures were all ruined. Due to that the temple looked very dark, gloomy and scary. By time we walked though the centered part of the temple, almost everyone got tired so we ended our journey there and we headed back our tuk-tuk.
One of 72 garudas on the outter wall
The still standing Linga
An old lady at the temple..cleaning wax from the buddha's statue
The beautiful carvings at the inner wall of the temple
Four Pilgrims Journey to Shopping Free.
However, our holly temple visit didn’t end here. As the journey back home would bypass the Angkor Thom, we all opt to stop by Angkor Thom once again to do our shopping. Or initial plan was to go Angkor Wat to see the sun set, but since all of us were almost tired, we opt to head back home straight. We rested for a while, bathed and went back to ANgkor Wat for another session of sunset which we fail to see. Hence, we went for out very early for dinner. But first, we stacked our daily food supply form Blue Pumpkin. Some how, we ended at the same restaurant, Angkor Famous where today we got our royal treatment. Feeling so stuffed akka and me decided to go for a walk while Mok and Ramnah headed back room. The market was about to close but we still managed to shop. I finally found something for J, beautiful pendent and couple of elephants for akka. Feeling satisfied we headed back to our guesthouse to end another tiring day.
Akka and me at Angkor Wat waiting for sunset
If you really look close at those clouds...you can see a man's face ...ironic huh! may be god amused with us looking at sun set he decided to follows us!
The only view of sunset
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