Cambodia Day 3 - Angkor

Friday, 16 October, 2009

We woke up early to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Our guide and driver were already waiting for us at the guesthouse.

this is the only apsara who is smiling with teeth shown


bullets in the walls from the war


The sunrise wasn't as exciting as it could have been.. we headed back to the guesthouse for breakfast. After which we went back to the Angkor area again to see the temples.

The South Gate of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom was the last capital city of the Khmer Empire. Many of the temples/buildings/hotels have this long snake creature with lots of guys pulling it. That's a naga (serpent), and the guys are asuras(demons) on one side, and gods on the other side. This is the story of the 'Churning of the Ocean of Milk'. Quite interesting.. So basically these guys are using the serpent to churn this ocean of milk and in the end they get some gifts:

1. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune and Wealth -Vishnu's consort
2. Airavata, the 3 headed elephant of Indra
3. Apsaras, various divine nymphs like Rambha, Menaka, Punjikasthala, etc.
4. Uchhaishravas, the divine 7-headed horse
5. Sharanga, the bow of Vishnu
6. Shankha Vishnu's conch
7. Amrita the nectar of immortality.

There are 14 in all as listed in wiki but these are the ones we learnt from our dear tour guide Vanna.

the good guys!


these are the gifts.. the 3 headed elephant, apsaras..goddesses..


we climbed on top of the gate for some photos

Bayon

This is definitely a must-visit! Easily my favorite place in Angkor.

learning to apsara-dance


most of these are excerpts from the ramayana.. the different armies have different details to them.


Many of my travel mates were super fascinated by this lingam, which is a phallic symbol. However seems like no one really knows what it represents.




Our poor guide was really patient with us. He kept wanting to move on but we took the longest time to take photos. So we made him join in the fun!


wherethehellismatt at bayon!




apsara dance practice


vanna was a good photographer!

Terrace of Elephants






Phimeanakas




it's always abt the 3 headed elephants




cambodian cows don't moo. they go 'more...'

Ta Prohm





tomb raiders

These trees are called 'spung'. They grow very easily and grow through crevices in the temple walls, breaking down the structures. The authorities are now in a dilemma whether or not to remove the trees. If they do not remove them, they will continue to destroy the temples. However, if the trees are removed, temples like Ta Prohm wouldn't be as beautiful as it is today.

kinda christmassy


and it was back to Angkor Wat

vanna spent the LONGEST time here explaining the ramayana to us. See how excited everyone is. Heat + afternoon = no ramayana please! I did remember some bits about some monkey.. something like that..

interesting light in this photo


too bad we aren't allowed to climb up the tower anymore!


when you don't have a wide angle lens.. you end up having to twist, bend, and lie on the floor

It's getting late. There wasn't much of a sunset to talk about either. Vanna asked us if we had plans after this and mentioned going to a 'discotheque' after dinner. Thinking that he was joking, I gamely replied sure!

We wanted to have French food for dinner, however with the guide and driver around, they refused to bring us to a French restaurant (er, cos they won't get free food there.. and it may be too expensive for us to treat them). So we realized that we could only have that on a day where we didn't use the driver.

Ended up with Thai food (and korean bbq beef).

And.. Vanna wasn't joking about the disco. We did end up at one! Here we are at 'Soksan Palace'. The kind of place we would never dare step into if we didn't have a local with us.

my choice of strawberry daiquiri

So, we were getting a bit bored sitting aroung with our drinks, and our guide talking to our driver at the side. We saw a karaoke room at the corner and asked the guide how much it would cost. After he asked around, it was $10usd/hour and we could bring our existing drinks in. They also have english and chinese songs. Sounds reasonable.

We walked into the room marked 'Karaoke' and realized that it was actually a passage way that led to many more rooms behind. We walked by an area where there were erm, a lot of girls sitting there. We quickly shuffled into one of the rooms and wow, it was quite nice! There were even 2 waitresses in there who helped us to choose the songs.

our guide sang too!


nice room


turned out there was a resident gecko in that room.

We were quite worried about being overcharged, but at least our guide was there with us. And amazingly, it really did cost exactly $10. Haha! cheap and fun entertainment! I guess people usually get more drinks but we were super cheapo and just drank our existing ones.