Richard Halverstadt: July 4, 2011: Cambodia Day 3

July 4, 2011: My stay in Cambodia certainly has been an adventure. Before I report today's activities, I'd like to mention some traveling tips to Siem Reap for any of you who plan to visit Cambodia:

I would recommend my hotel, the Kazna whose motto is "serve you from the heart" which certainly is the case. The staff are so sincere and helpful. The hotel is a five minute walk from the center of town but the rooms are very clean, the hotel is air conditioned, and the rates are a good value for the money ($22 per night). There's also free wireless and TV with many English speaking stations. Oh, and did I mention that it's air conditioned?
There's really no need to change any money at the bank since US dollars are used for all transactions I've made so far. In fact, when I use Cambodian money, the change I get is often in US dollars.
You'll need to develop an indifferent almost heartless attitude in dealing with sellers of merchandise, restaurants, massage specialists, tuk tuk drivers, etc. They can be quite obnoxious and some often walk in the path you're taking to try to sell you things. Small children plead "Help me pay for school, Sir" but the truth of the matter is that school is free (as is medical care for all children) so they are really playing hooky to try to earn some money rather than study.
Food is a real bargain. I have had really good food for around $5 a meal and this is at restaurants which look very clean and obviously cater to foreigners.

And now, on to my doings of the day. Since my driver had to accompany his second grade son to school for him to take the final exam, he sent a friend to take me to Angkor Thom and came later as I was going through the ruins so that I met him when I had completed seeing the first on today's agenda. His friend is a licensed tour guide and he gave me some details about the history of the temples, explaining that there are three Hindu gods that the temples were built to honor: Vishnu (god of protection), Brahma (god of creation), and Siva (god of destruction) The temples are built in three levels, the outer level depicting in bas relief the lives of these gods -- mostly fighting as you can imagine with Siva in the mix of things; and the inner level (the highest level of each temple since they are sort of built like a layered cake in construction) built for Vishnu.

We started with Angkor Thom ("Angkor" means "village" and "Thom" means "large" so "Angkor Thom" means "large village". "Wat" means "monastery" so "Angkor Wat" means "Village of monasteries"). As I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry, Angkor Thom was built as a Buddhist temple whereas most of the others are Hindu, so you can see the difference in Angkor Thom because of all the Buddha faces in the towers. There are 49 towers in the temple and 5 entry towers so altogether there are 54 towers which represent the number of provinces and cities in Cambodia centuries ago. Since then, due to wars with neighboring countries, 30 of these provinces have been lost so Cambodia only has 24 provinces today. Here are pictures of Angkor Thom:

Angkor Thom

Before going to the temple, we drove through the south gate:

Angkor Thom - front of south gate

Angkor Thom - statue at entrance

Angkor Thom - back of south gate

As you can see, there are many faces of Buddha in Angkor Thom.The first stop was Bayon. As I approached the entrance, I could see people taking elephant rides:

I entered Bayon:

Angkor Thom - Bayon

From Bayon, I walked north to the temple Baphuon:

Angkor Thom - Baphuon Temple

Angkor Thom - Baphuon Temple top

Angkor Thom - Baphuon Temple top - proof I climbed all the way to the top!

Leaving Baphuon, I walked to Phimeanakas, a temple and the palace of the king:

Angkor Thom Phimeanakas

Angkor Thom Phimeanakas - you can barely see a rainbow above even without rain

Angkor Thom Phimeanakas

From there it was to the Elephant Terrace:

Angkor Thom Elephant Terrace

Walking north, I came to Terrace of the Leper King:

Angkor Thom Terrace of the Leper King bas relief

I met my driver and we drove to Chau Say Thevada, a Buddhist temple and Thommanom:

Chau Say Thevada

Thommanom

We next drove to Spean Thma, a bridge that at one time was used for crossing the river. Now there are trees that have overtaken the bridge:

Spean Thma (bridge)

From here we drove to Ta Keo. Note the very steep steps leading to the top of the temple. These steps are common to all the temples of Angkor -- very high (~ 1 foot) and very narrow (~ 4 inches). They would be unforgiving if anyone were to fall on them -- almost a vertical drop!

Ta Keo

Although others did climb to the top of the temple, I climbed only to the second level figuring that the view would be similar to the views at the tops of the other temples that I had already climbed. Besides, I was drenched from sweat.

From Ta Keo, we drove to Ta Prohm. This temple, dedicated to the king's mother, is interesting because trees grow on top of many of the towers. Seeing as the trees are very large (and therefore old), one can imagine how old the buildings on which they grew are. On the way, I saw a father hold his daughter high in the air:

Ta Prohm

There was a lot of construction taking place at Ta Prohm and as I left, a truck was trying to leave the temple through a narrow gate. Just see how narrow the gate was compared to the width of the truck!

After Ta Prohm, we traveled to Banteay Kdei:

Banteay Kdei

What impresses me most of this temple (and many of the others I've seen) is how precisely they were built. As you can see in the last picture, the doorways are all aligned so that no matter how long the building is, you can always see all the way through to the other end. And these buildings go on for at least 100 yards!

From Banteay Kdei, we went to the last temple for the day, Prasat Kravan, another temple built to honor Vishnu. What's interesting about this temple is the red stone that was used to build it.

Prasat Kravan

While driving back to town, my driver drove past the royal palace, the home of the King that had waved at me yesterday. I felt like going to his door and saying "Hi, remember me?"

King's Palace

After that my driver took me to a fine restaurant for lunch:

A few observations on Cambodia:

Traffic lights are not solid circular globes. Rather they are a red cross (Stop) and a green arrow(s) indicating what direction a driver can turn. Also, there is a countdown in green lights as to how many seconds are left before the light changes colors.
Drivers don't seem to bother with whether they need to drive on the right (legal here) or left. With so many motorcycles being driven, this doesn't seem to create too much of a mess.
Cambodians are very polite: they greet one or say goodbye by placing fingers from both hands touching (like praying) and bowing to the person they are greeting.
I misspoke about the price of food above. Tonight's dinner cost $4.25 and I had a delicious and plentiful helping of curried pork with vegetables and steamed rice plus a half liter of draft beer. Imagine that! And the restaurant had very nice ambiance, service, and staff: