We move onto to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh. A short hop (50 minutes flight time) to Siem Reap. Check into the hotel then off to Tonle Sap lake and visit one of the floating villages. This is the dry season so we drove about half hour out of town to a channel cut from the lake, then ploughed our way down the channel for about 20 minutes or so to the lake which is also very shallow then onto one of the floating fishing villages. As we headed out of the channel there was a myriad of smaller boats that came up along side, the technique is for a little kid to jump on board and start to flog soft drinks for $1USD a can, these kids would be about 5 years old. After this they also jump on board with snakes and any photos taken they demand payment. - yes a dollar we had been forewarned so this was not an issue although the snakes scared the beejezuz out of a few on board. We pulled up at a floating village and had a good look around. It is quite amazing how they live like this all of their lives. Definitely a great experience.
"Ploughing" thru the lake
View of part of the floating village
Friday 11th
Up not so bright but very early (bus pick up time 5am) to head out to Angor Wat and catch the first hours of daylight with Angor Wat as the backdrop. This is what I had been looking forward to. What a fantastic sight to be there at the first hours of daylight . Well worth the early rise.
We then had an extensive tour of the temple itself over the three levels that could be accessed. To think that this was built in about 10th or 11th century, and have survived until now pretty well until now. The structure itself is perfectly square and in the winter and summer solstice is perfectly aligned east to west the sun shine thru. Am amazing engineering feat in itself and just to get the sandstone used in the construction to the site, and then get it up tp the various levels is amazing. All surfaces have carvings that tell various stories, and when yo see the size of the temple the amount quality of the workmanship is astounding.
Looking from the eastern side at about 6:15am, a low light shot, so a little fuzzy
In the afternoon we headed onto Ta Promh Temple. Here is a couple of photos, and you should be able to tell me where this was taken
Yes - this is the doorway that Lara Croft (aka Angelina Jolie) came out of in the movie Tomb Raider.
Onto the evening the Cambodian food is excellent, we went to the best restaurant tonight. The national disk is Fish Amok, this restaurant had a variation on this Amok Degustation, which was a portion of each of the differnt "Amok" dishes on their menu, Chicken, Beef, Shrimp, Fish I have forgotten the rest but there are seven in all.
No comments:
Post a Comment