We started
out with rain this morning…and lots of humidity. It turns out that we are here in the monsoon
season…but non-monsoon season is brutally hot so we’ll take the rain. (The monsoon season ends in early
November.) Fortunately, the rains let up
by the time we picked up our tickets and headed out sightseeing.
Today is
the long anticipated visit to the many temples of Siem Reap. The temples were “discovered” in 1860 by
French naturalist Henri Mouhot. Of
course, the locals knew about the temples all along and were still using them
but it seems that if the West didn’t know about something it is lost until a
Westerner finds it.
At the entrance to the complex were some wonderful water lily filled lakes.
The first
area we visited was two of the main restored temples in Angkor Thom (the Great
City),
Bayon Temple (with 54 towers) and wonderful reliefs,
and Ta Prohm, both built in the 12th
century by King Juryavarman II.
Of more
recent interest, Ta Prohm was used as a filming location in Tomb Raiders. Everyone was getting their picture taken at a
couple of key filming locations. We
passed on the posing.
We had a
great lunch in an open air restaurant...
where several of us tried the fruit
shakes. These shakes are fruit, sugar,
ice and milk (no ice cream).
We then headed
to Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. It was originally built as a Hindu temple of
the god Vishnu but was later transformed into a Buddhist temple.
The long gallery along one side had been well
protected from the elements and the carvings were in very good shape.
After
viewing the gallery we climbed the stairs to the top where we explored the
towers and had views in all directions.
We ended
the tour at the reflection lake where we had an unobstructed view of the Angkor
Wat and its reflection.
We waited around
for a while to see if we would get a good sunset but there were just too many clouds overhead for an interesting sunset so we gave up and headed out.
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More photos of Angkor Wat
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Dinner
tonight was at the Crystal Restaurant where we were treated to a great dinner
and a wonderful show of five different Cambodian dances. It was fascinating watching the dancer’s
fingers, hands, and toes.
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When walking,
the dancers always placed the foot with the toes curled up at an impossible
angle before they came down as the dancer finished the step. At times the hands and fingers were bent so
far back that the fingers almost touched their arms. Apparently as part of their dance training the dancers spend a lot of time bending their fingers, hands and toes as far back as possible so that they can perform these gestures.
The costumes were gorgeous and the hand
gestures very graceful. We all had a
wonderful time.
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