Cambodia Days 3 and 4

On day three we went to see the 'Lost Temple in the Jungle' otherwise known as Beng Melea. It's not included as part of the Angkor complex because it takes about two hours to get there by car from Siam Reap (Be warned.....it's a very bumpy road!!) so still doesn't get a lot of tourists - we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Apparently reports of Beng Melea began circulating in the late 1990's - a few courageous travellers arrived in Siam Reap with story's about being escorted by villagers to a lost temple buried under vegetation. The canopy of trees covering it didn't let in a lot of light so photo's taken were not great but the images sparked something in peoples imaginations and more visitors made the effort to go and see it. It is believed to have been built at the end of the 11th century and that it was the prototype for Angkor Wat so it's an incredibly important piece of Khmer art and history and it was this that prompted Culture Officials to go and view the site. I am thrilled to say that they have decided to try and preserve the temple exactly the way it is now (they would lose something really special if they tried to restore it.......it is stunningly beautiful but it is falling apart!!) and the area around the actual temple has now been cleared of the land mines (although you are warned not to stray into the surrounding area).

I am struggling to put into words the feelings this temple evoked in me - it was my favourite....like Ta Phrom only even more wild and untamed. It was so incredibly peaceful......it felt like it had faced it's downfall and then been frozen in time. Honestly, you walk along the path towards jungle and then slowly but surely this huge, stunning, crumbly temple is revealed to you. You have to be reasonably fit to be able to explore the whole thing.....there are doorways with the most intricate carvings but the only way to pass through them is to climb over the stones that once formed part of the ceiling. There is lush vegetation everywhere you look and huge trees that grow from the temple's walls their roots dribbling down the stone work. It was phenomenal!!! It was also wet and we emerged from our clambering looking a bit like drowned rats but not one of us cared.

On the way back into Siam Reap we went to see Chong Khneas, the floating village on Tonle Sap Lake. (We were supposed to be going to Kompong Phlik the stilted village on the Lake but having done some research on it I discovered that the place we went was actually Chong Khneas). That was an experience and a half - I have never seen poverty like it......I honestly thought having spent time in the slums here in Bangkok that it would now be quite difficult to shock me......I was wrong!! These people have practically nothing - no water, no electricity (If there was any it was provided by old car batteries) , some of the houses were constructed mainly from plastic bags and there was mud absolutely everywhere!! Things did improve as we moved away from where the boats were stationed and got into Chong Khneas proper. There are actually more than 5,000 people that form a community who live on floating houses in the middle of this lake - there was a school, a basket ball court and even a church. My gob was well and truly smacked!! We actually got to watch a family moving house.....basically they were towing their house by boat to another location. It was fascinating but shocking to see!!

We headed back to our hotel all feeling slightly shell shocked and in need of a few drinks so that evening we headed to the tourist area of the town. It was great - some really nice bars, loads of restaurants and a couple of really impressive art galleries. We had a great time, we found a lovely little bar called The Ivy so we spent our evening sitting watching the world go by, having a couple of beers and a chat.

The following day was our last and we took it easy - we visited a couple of Wat's in town, grabbed some lunch and then headed out to the airport. We had a fantastic time in Cambodia and I think we will definately go back!!

Cambodia Day 1

Sorry - have been a bit busy so am only just getting round to updating you on how we got on in Cambodia. It was absolutely wonderful - I was quite surprised at how similar it was to Thailand but also how different it was too!! The day-to-day life of the Cambodian people struck me as being a lot harder than that of the Thais. All the temples were just gob smackingly beautiful - I think I'm going to have to get my thesaurus out and look up the word stunning and then use every single alternative to describe what we saw!!

Anyway........the journey was a doddle (The flight was just over an hour) and when we landed we just sailed through immigration - we had got our visa's online (It was surprisingly easy....we just scanned our passport photo's into the computer, filled out a form and paid. When they were ready they were e-mailed to us and all we had to do was print them out and show them at immigration). We were met at the airport by our guide, Mr Lee, and our driver and taken to our hotel. OMG Cambodian traffic makes the traffic in Bangkok look well organised!! Technically driving on the right is the norm.........unless you want to drive on the left.......and that appears to be fine too. Priority seems to be in order of size, big smoke-belching lorries do what they want and everyone else gets out of their way, then in descending order: 4x4s, minibuses, pickup trucks, cars, motorbike and trailer combinations, motorbikes, ox carts and lastly cyclists, pedestrians, dogs and chickens. (The only exception to this rule were the Cyclo taxis which are given way to because people feel sorry for a six stone pensioner pedalling a half-ton tricycle).
Sorry, I've digressed.....

The hotel we were staying at was called The Freedom Hotel and I have to say that we were slightly disappointed - it was clean, comfortable and the food was good but it was quite far out from the main tourist area so had no bars within walking distance of it. (you know what we're like!!). We checked in, dumped our stuff and then headed out to do a late morning tour of Angkor Wat from the East Gate (Which is essentially the back door of the temple). One of the things that really struck me about the approach to the temple was the colour of the ground - I've never seen earth so red before....it was really quite stunning!! Angkor was everything we had hoped for and more - it's so impressive and HUGE and because we had gone in the back way we managed to miss most of the tourists so it felt like we had the entire temple to ourselves (that was until we bumped into a party of Korean tourists - there were only about five of them - Korean tourists I have discovered are incredibly loud!!). The galleries of carvings were unbelievable and everywhere you looked there were little details that just jumped out at you - We even saw a monk translating some of the writing on one of the walls and I managed to get a picture - the script he is reading is Pali (Pali has been around since the time of the Buddha and is regarded as the root language of all beings).

History (You know what I'm like - I just can't help myself.....if your not interested just look at the pictures :-D). Angkor Wat was built for King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. It combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture - the temple mountain and the galleried temple. It is believed to have been designed to represent Mount Meru which is the home of the gods in Hindu mythology. It is still the subject of much debate amongst scholars as most Angkorian temples are built facing East but Angkor Wat faces the West.

We had lunch at a little stall overlooking the temple - I don't any of us could quite believe we were actually sitting there looking at it!! After lunch we got back in the car and headed to our next temple, Bayon. Now, I have to say here that having just been to Angkor Wat I was thinking that I had already seen the best of the temples......I was so so wrong!!!

The Bayon temple was the last state temple to be built at Angkor (around the late 12th century) and it was the only one to be built primarily as a Mahayana Buddhist temple. It was built by King Jawavarman VII and it stands as the centrepiece for his Capital, Angkor Thom. The entrance to the temple was impressive enough - the road was lined with figures but when it comes to the actual temple words fail me and the pictures just don't do it justice!! The Bayon's most distinctive feature is the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace - each of the towers has three or four gigantic smiling faces and it's just incredible. Our guide told us that there are about 200 faces carved into the temple and he took this fab photo of me rubbing noses with one of them. It was very very busy but again Mr Lee managed to steer us round in such a way that we missed most of the tourists - by the time we had reached the top of the tower however there was nothing we could do to avoid them so we decided to call it quits (The level of noise really was quite incredible - Korean and Chinese tourists seem incapable of doing anything quietly!!)

Before we came we had arranged to go on an evening hot air balloon trip so that we could see Angkor Wat from above. I was pleasantly surprised because, although I am terrified of heights, I was absolutely fine (Chris and Tom were a lot less fine!!). We got some good shots of the whole area and some lovely ones of Angkor. Then it was back to the hotel for drinks and dinner - Chris went out for a walk and came back with a couple of bottles of wine so we had a look through the days photo's whilst sipping wine and then went down for dinner. Cambodian food is not quite as good as Thai but we did have the most stunning lemon soup which I will have to hunt down a recipe for!!

You have been warned

We leave for Angkor Wat tomorrow morning.
Chris has been busy preparing.......we could now start a shop with the number of memory cards we have for our cameras!!

You have been warned!!!

See you when we get back!!

Exciting things.....

OMG OMG OMG......I'm so excited......My Mum arrives tomorrow. (I've been running around like a loony trying to get everything I need to done before she gets here.) I can't quite believe I will see my wee daft mammy tomorrow!!

AND




I've just got conformation through that in January
Chris, Tom (He was my matron of honour at our wedding) and I will be going to.......wait for it.....

Anchor Wat!!!!

OMG OMG OMG......I think I may be about to burst!!