SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA

Images from Angkor Wat, World Heritage site, and known to be "the largest and most exquisitely executed religious building ever conceived by man."


The Hindu temple was built during the reign of the Angkorian king Suryavarman II in the early to mid 12th century and served as a capital and religious center during his reign.

Carvings of apsara, or celestial female beings brought to life during the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.

The outermost part of Angkor Wat is encompassed by a moat 1.5 kilometres long (from east to west) and 1.3 kms long (from north to south). For some reason, we weren't able to locate the so-called "reflecting pools" from which it is best to photograph Angkor Wat-- as far as we could see, the temple was obscured by trees from the pool's surface! We also only had half a day to tour the complex. And since it was cloudy and raining intermittently, no glorious sunset shot either:(

The ancient city was finally sacked by the Thais in 1431.
The pyramid shape reflects the Hindu place of the gods, Mount Meru.

Images from Ta Phrom, one of the temples surrounding Angkor Wat and where the movie Lara Croft was shot:

It was constructed in the mid 12th to early 13th century under Jayavarman VII's building programme and was dedicated to his mother.

Its structure is being steadily subsumed by trees, making it very photogenic.

A child sleeps beside a Buddhist altar inside the temple.

Ta Prohm then boasted of a population of 12,000 and hoarded a wealth of stones and precious metals.
A man demonstrates the use of a native string instrument being sold at his shop where we stopped to drink fresh buko juice.

Images from Bayon Temple:

The vast stone heads, which gaze from all directions, are surmised to be the representations of Jayavarman VII himself, or the Buddha, or the Bodhisattvas.
It was built in the late 12th century and contains bas-reliefs that rival that of Angkor Wat's.

The Cambodian border, only about 4 hours of travel from Bangkok, shows the remarkable contrast typical in Third World countries. After passing through immigration, what greets you beyond the Kingdom of Cambodia arc are Mercedes Benzes going in and out of sprawling casinos while children beg for alms and farmers push around their wares in wooden carts.

Traveling through the unpaved roads of the Cambodian countryside feels like traveling through the more neglected provinces of the Philippines. Farmers bending over rice fields, children swimming in the mud, ramshackle huts, with only a cluster of a few, dusty stores and bungalows serving as some kind of town proper breaking the monotonous landscape every 50 kilometers. But at least we have our glorious mountains. What makes the Cambodian countryside doubly bleak is that there are hardly any of these rich repositories of natural resources in sight.


Maybe it shouldn't, but it still shocks me to see how impoverished the fishing communities near the Tonle Sap Lake are. The Tonle Sap, ironically, is the world's most abundant freshwater fishing grounds.

We went to the tourist-flocked "floating village" at the said lake. It made me feel real guilty perpetuating the "attraction" of their difficult lives (though they were probably used to it, judging from the way the children smiled and waved at us and other passing tourist boats). But really, it was something else--there was a floating school, a floating church, a floating school, a floating vulcanizing shop, a floating police station, even a floating basketball court! They literally live their lives afloat! How a slightly rocking sensation must feel for them absolutely still. I wonder how addresses there read (though it is interesting to note that their house-boats do have numbers).

The boatman heaves our colorful water vehicle back into place. It has been a wonderful journey.