A long way from home

Sunday, 19 October 2014

Angkor Wat Siem Reap. Cambodia

What I thought of as Angkor Wat is totally different from what it is . There are a whole load of ancient temples in Siem Reap and Angkor Wat is just one of them and I would say in my opinion not the most impressive. All of the temples have their similarities but also there differences so I won't bore you with all the photos I have taken, there is a common expression that the Asian countries we have been in use, which is Same, same but different and that is how I would class the temples. It took us three days to visit the ones we did, we did not do them all and by the end I was all templed out, David said he could do more!

On the first day we visited three.

The first was Prasat Kravan this is a small temple compared to the rest, it has been open a lot to the elements so there was a lot of erosion and weathering but some of the carvings that were still there were nice.

The second was Banteay Kdei across from it was Sras Srang which is the King's bathing pool the only thing we saw getting washed in it was a cow.

No Kings today!

Banteay Kdei was more ornate with a lot more stone statues and more to explore. A lot of the temples are made up of lots of corridors which are very maze like and easy to get lost in. I was constantly losing David maybe he was doing that deliberately!

There are a lot of carvings in the stone, which are very intricate and detailed, even the bits that aren't obvious places to look, have carvings.

The last temple of the day was Ta Prohm, also known as the jungle temple. This temple has become overgrown with trees and looks like it has come straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. I liked this temple, in fact I liked all of the temples that had trees in them. This temple is getting restored at the moment and there are some arguments that the trees should be removed. In some places although the trees have obviously caused some damage to the temples, they are in other places holding it up.

A doorway with roots growing over it. (I don't know why it has the strange black border around the photo)

Look at the size of the tree compared to David.

Ta Prohm was built from 1186 and was originally known as Rajavihara, which means Monastery of the King, it was a Buddhist temple. As I say a lot of restoration work has been done here and it was nice to see the before and after pictures of what had been done. This is a very popular temple with lots of bus tours in, blooming tourists everywhere!

On the second day we started with Angkor Wat which has a huge moat around it. It does cover a lot of area but a lot of that area is grassland. The photos below show us in front of Angkor Wat

The main entrance, there were a lot of Buddhist monks at this temple so you will often see flashes of orange in the photos. We actually saw what was their equivalent to a bus tour , or school outing there was at least 4 tuktuks in a row, with about ten novice monks in each. Tuktuks are ideally built for 4 passengers so they were all squashed in, smiling away and waving, was quite a sight.

They have built wooden steps over the original stone steps to protect them. A lot of the steps in the temples are very steep , some being nearly knee height which made them very hard work when you did have to use them.

The Cambodians take a lot of pride in Angkor Wat and it is used on their flag.

Angkor Wat was built by Suryavarman II, he was different from earlier kings religiously in that he was devoted to Hinduism in particular the deity Vishnu, to whom he consecrated the temple.

Nowadays there are statues of Buddha in there. Angkor War was built around the same time as Westminster Abbey.

The carvings shown below, known as bas reliefs stretch around the outside of the central temple. They are under cover so are well preserved, some of them still show bits of their original colour. This is very impressive to see mainly due to their length, 800 metres in all but also the detail put into them

is extraordinary.

Next we headed to Angkor Thom, there are four entrances or gates to this area, each one has these amazing statues either side of the road. A lot of the statues are very worn but some restoration work has been done on them. Can you guess which ones have new heads?

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Holiday in Cambodia

Well the time has come to leave Thailand the days and weeks seem to be going so fast, we really enjoyed our time there and hopefully will return in the future. David enjoyed himself so much at the Elephant Nature Park that he wanted to volunteer at their other animal sanctuary, the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary, so we organised this during our last couple of days in Chang Mai and luckily they had space for us to go, starting October the 20th.

We travelled by plane again ChangMai to Bangkok and then onto Siem Reap, the journey was uneventful although we had to wait in the departure lounge with a large amount of Chinese holidaymakers returning home. They all seem to talk very loudly and incessantly, the noise was incredible, there were announcements being made which we couldn't hear, which was even more annoying as it is the only departure lounge we have been in without a departure board. At one point David spoke to me and I couldn't hear him, so he repeated it more loudly, the looks we got for being noisy were incredible, all these disapproving heads suddenly turned towards us, was quite funny!

At about ten o'clock we arrived at our new hotel, this one was quite pricey so we had only booked it for a couple of days. After our hotel nightmare in Delhi we have started playing it safe, we now don't book too cheap or for too long. If we get somewhere and like it we book more days there.

We were picked up as arranged at the airport by the hotel by what we thought was going to be a taxi, but it was a tuktuk, also known as a remork in Cambodia, locals call them tuktuks though. It was lovely not like tuktuks in the other countries we have visited, it is a motorbike with a mini carriage hooked on the back. It is quite slow and sedate and you can see the sights while getting a cooling breeze, I loved it.

The hotel staff were very friendly and we even got a welcoming drink. We had to walk up a wooden walkway over water to the reception and there was koi in the water and plants. Then when we got to our room the bed had flowers on it, I have never had a bed like that, I was so excited I took a photo straightway and sent it home. I had a dilemma when it came to bed time though, I didn't want to ruin the lovely display, but eventually I scooped the petals up and put them into a pot. I felt sorry for the maid who had obviously put a lot of work into the design.

The bathroom was gorgeous too, it even had a bath! I put this running but it took ages as it was so deep. It was late at night but I was determined that I was going to have a bath, most places just have showers, so this was a luxury I was not going to miss.

The next day we started to visit the local temples which are very famous, Angkor Wat being one of many in the area, then we went in the swimming pool at the hotel, I tell you very luxurious, and the pool was just outside our bedroom door. In the evening we went for a walk in the local area and came across what looked like huge cauldrons. These are their bins, each house has one on the doorstep, they are made from tyres which have been turned inside out, very innovative. The base is made of strips of tyres, I think they would make good plant pots. I will need to have a word with a friend of mine, Anne D, as I can feel a enterprise project coming on.

The next day we moved to a new hotel, the last one was lovely but pricey as I said, it wasn't too far away so we decided to walk. So laden down with our rucksacks we set off, then a tuktuk went past , we shook our heads to the driver asking if we wanted a tuktuk. He continued on, shouting "Just one dollar, " that's less than a quid , we hopped on. We were greeted at our new hotel by a nervous looking young girl who tentatively told us the hotel was shut. We just looked at her puzzled as we were standing in the lobby, so it wasn't shut but she went onto to explain that they had three hotels and it was quiet season so they were putting their guests from that hotel into a their bigger hotel which also had a pool. So they organise a tuktuk to come and get us and transfer us over. While we were waiting we saw this sign which we took a photo of sneakily, that's why it isn't very clear but it is saying that handguns, grenades and syringes(drugs) were not allowed. A bit strict! There was also another sign saying no durians, the smelly fruit I mentioned in another blog.

Talking about handguns in two of the airports we have been in there have been areas where you can leave your handguns but you have to take the bullets out first.

One of the receptionists at the hotel thought we were Australian because of our accent, we explained that we weren't but then this sign greeted us in our room!

A picture of a tuktuk, we used this one two days in a row to see the temples. The driver was very nice and spoke good English.

This was also in our hotel room, I have never had a tin of bug killer awaiting me in my room. Should I be concerned? It is lavender scented so at least the bugs go out in style. Haven't had to use it yet!

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Walking street Market Chang Mai

When we booked into the nice hotel for my birthday this notice was on the door, the top part you see everywhere but the bottom part I have not seen before. Curious I googled Durians, apparently it is a very smelly fruit, smells like rotten meat, yuck. So the question is who was the first person to peel it and thought that smells nice I will give it a go!

Just around the corner from the hotel is the Sunday walking street market. It is amazing they close the roads and stalls set up in front of the shops that are there all the time. There are many interesting sights and lots to buy, if we weren't moving around so much I would have bought loads. Luckily I have got rid of some clothes lately so had some space to squeeze things in. I will however need to come back here as I have my eye on a few things.

There is a section where there are a lot of musicians busking, a lot of them seem to be blind, have limbs missing or in wheelchairs . The above band are blind and played lovely tunes. There was also a very old band, whose collective age must have been 400 and there were only 4 in the band. There was a young Thai girl playing a guitar and singing she could only have been about 5.

This stall sold dog clothes, yup it happens over here too, dogs get dressed up. Can you see the hair being blown by the fan.

This man is weaving banana leaves into items, he is wearing a banana hat. We saw a lovely grasshopper made out of banana leaves but it would be too fragile to carry home.

This man was making things out of string, such as elephants, dragons and squirrels. We bought a squirrel, the owner of the guesthouse said he had never seen anyone buy a squirrel one before. Ours is going in the summerhouse back home.

This man is stripping sugar cane which is then put into a crushing device to get sugar cane juice which people were buying.

You may need to enlarge this photo. There were stalls advertising yummy ice cream but this appealed more. Ancient ice cream, I wonder what it's sell by date is!

Monday, 13 October 2014

3D art exhibition Chang Mai

We went to a 3D art exhibition place today was really good, everything was painted flat onto walls and floors and then you could interact with the picture.