Since arriving in Cambodia eight days earlier, we had spent time in Phnom Penh and traveled to Siem Reap and Mesang. We planned to spend the final part of our vacation relaxing in Kampong Som (also frequently called ‘Sihanoukville’). We spent our time after supper on Friday packing suitcases and preparing for an early start on Saturday. Alas, after the brutal bouncing on the trip to Mesang, the van needed a few repairs. We still left early; just not as early as planned…

Waiting.

No van this way…

No van this way, either.

Extraordinary Nephew is perfectly content. He doesn’t get impatient waiting for vans to arrive.

Soon enough, we were on our way. Well – we were on our way after a quick stop to purchase fried bananas…

The only way to justify eating this is to say that it’s a new and unique Cambodian food and that we should try it in order to broaden our horizons.

Our route to Kampong Som via National Road #4

Kampong Som is a port city on the Gulf of Thailand about 185 km from Phnom Penh…

[Sihanoukville] is named after King Father Norodom Sihanouk and grew up around the construction of Sihanoukville Port. Construction on the port began in June 1955 and it was the only deep water port in Cambodia. The port was built in part due to the waning power of the French leading to the Vietnamese tightening their control over the Mekong Delta and hence restricting river access to Cambodia. Sihanoukville’s beaches have made it a popular tourist destination.

(Sihanoukville on Wikipedia)

About halfway to Kampong Som (as I’ll call it from here on), we approached Pech Nil Pass and stopped for lunch. I didn’t get a picture of the rest area or the meal itself, but I photographed dessert!

If my memory serves correctly, this is a steamed rice flour cake that reminded me of a tamale. The filling was sweet and made from coconuts (and maybe bean curd?).

Pech Nil Pass was just about a half kilometer beyond the restaurant. From there, the road begins its descent toward the coast. However, before most Cambodians continue beyond the pass, they stop to venerate the ancestral spirit of Yeay Mao. There are numerous stories and legends surrounding her, and the actual details of her life have been lost. However, she is supposed to be quite powerful, wielding influence over a large portion of Cambodia in the area from Pech Nil toward the Gulf of Thailand. As a result, travelers stop to burn incense and leave offerings.

Shrines to Yeay Mao (and road construction) at Pech Nil Pass

After getting over the pass, there is a pleasant descent down the mountain and through the countryside…

Before long we were driving through Kampong Som and arriving at our hotel on the far side…

The Orchideé Guest House

The front entrance

And check out our room with its paintings!

Oldest Daughter ponders one of the paintings. Funky, huh?

Once we had settled in, there was still time in the day to visit the beach. But that will come in the next blog post.

Coming up: Hanging out around the Orchideé Guest House

The first time Ordinary Spouse and I visited Cambodia, her brother (Mr. Guest Complacent) was living in Mesang. When he first moved to that area, he lived with a host family, and although he had moved into his own place by the time we visited, we still had the opportunity to be dinner guests in the home of his hosts…

Dinner, January 2001

Group photo, January 2001

Fast forward nearly eleven years into the present… When his host family heard that we were visiting again, they invited us for another meal. I guess they considered it an honor to welcome us again. I certainly felt honored to be there.

We left Phnom Penh fairly early in order to get to Mesang by lunchtime. (Don’t forget to allow for Phnom Penh traffic!)

Did I mention that I love Phnom Penh traffic?

This is our route from Phnom Penh to Mesang. We went counterclockwise around the loop. The straight-line distance from Phnom Penh to Mesang is about 70 km.

Most of the trip was on National Highway #1 (from Phnom Penh to the southeast corner of the route shown above). That portion on the highway went fairly quickly, although it was interrupted at Neak Loeung, where vehicles have to cross the Mekong River by ferry.

Waiting in line for the ferry

That crossing is something of an eye-opener if it’s your first trip across. The moment your vehicle stops, you are greeted by a large assortment of vendors and beggars…

(Vendors…)

(And more vendors.)

After the ferry, it was quick driving again until we turn north off of the highway. My notes from the trip indicate that it was during this stretch that I saw an Asian Fairy-Bluebird – a gorgeous bird. I include a picture here so that you may all ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’…

(Asian Fairy-Bluebird by Bob Owen)

After we left the highway, things got a little slower. As on the road to Chong Khneas from Siem Reap, this road had also been damaged during the wet season, and it wasn’t quite back to full health. There isn’t much to say, except that we bumped along until we got to Mesang. Some of the holes were pretty big…

…and we either went slow or went around. Sometimes our driver would pick a path, change his mind, back up, and start through in a different direction. But eventually we arrived.

Many things were much the same as I remember them. The house is very similar (although that front stairway is new!). The parents have only aged a little bit.

There were also a few noticeable differences. The grandpa passed away a few years ago. (My brother-in-law was in the country at that time, and it was nice that he was able to be with their family for part of the funeral.) And where there had been parents and children last time, the children had gotten older and now there were some grandchildren thrown in to the mix…

Grandchildren! (And Ordinary Spouse to help out a shy one.)

We were welcomed warmly with smiles, snacks, and tea.

About the pictures above: At the top, Grandma sits with Ordinary Spouse and Youngest and Oldest Daughters. In the second, Grandma holds Oldest Daughters hands in her own. In the middle, the dad serves us some snacks. At the bottom, you can see all the snacks. Note the yellow tomato-looking fruit. It’s a persimmon. That was a first for me. (I can’t remember the taste now. I’ll have to try one again some time.)

The floors in houses in the countryside are made of bamboo slats, with openings between them. You eat on the floor, and clean-up afterwards is easy since you can simply brush things down to the animals below. In another example of hospitality, our hosts had unrolled their sleeping mats (beds!) to serve as tables for us.

I’m guessing that those snacks could have been a full meal for us. But the meal was yet to come…

Rice and utensils

That is a lot of food. Two full chickens, fish, and eggs, plus all of the side dishes.

It is one thing for us to have been tourists and for me to report on our vacation. It isn’t that hard to describe what we did and saw and purchased and tasted. However, it’s another thing for us to have been guests in this home, to do the dance of hospitality and customs and social norms, and for me to try to make sense of it afterwards. From that perspective, I find that this is perhaps the hardest blog post about our time in Cambodia. So I’ll just continue on and do the best that I can…

I think that I’m probably typical in experiencing a bit of nervousness anytime I’m in someone’s home for the first time. Most of us feel a certain pressure. It may not be pressure to impress others, but there is at least some pressure to not embarrass ourselves and a desire to respect our hosts. That pressure becomes more acute when you’re a guest in someone’s home in a foreign culture.  In Cambodia…

• Shoes are removed when entering a home.
• The head is sacred, so you don’t touch someone’s head. Not generally a problem with adults, but when you have children it becomes a different matter. I have no recollection whether I might have touched my own children’s heads. And I have no idea whether that would be viewed in the same way or not.
• Feet are the lowest part of the body. When seated on the floor, we tried to either cross our legs or tuck them to the sides. Stretching them out in front (as North Americans might do after a nice meal) wouldn’t be polite.
• If you are handed something, you receive it with your right hand.

Those are all things that I can/should do to maintain proper etiquette. I could probably think of some others, and of course there are many that I have no clue about. I really have no idea how well I did at observing the ones that I knew. That, of course, is part of the fear or nervousness. You go in to these new situations knowing ahead of time that you’re going to do something that you shouldn’t have, just because you didn’t know any better or because you’re not used to acting in certain ways.

Another aspect to Khmer etiquette that I found to be awkward (and that I couldn’t do anything about) was that the host mother didn’t eat with us.  I don’t know why this is, although I assume it has to do with hospitality. She was probably making sure that we (who were honored guests) had enough to eat. At the same time, I (who was honored to be a guest) would have been glad to eat with her. Funny how hospitality sometimes works like that.

‘Hospitality’ has been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I’m thinking it gets at the heart of what Christians are supposed to be about. We open space for each other to be ourselves, to love and be loved, and to allow God to enter in. We practice hospitality by being both host and guest. And we do it differently in the United States and Cambodia. We do it differently from place to place within the United States. We even do it differently from one family and one person to the next. Part of hospitality is allowing for the times when it doesn’t turn out the way we intended or expected.

One of the funny things about our dinner in Mesang is that despite all of the awkwardness (new foods, new customs, limited communication), I felt “at home”. Ordinary Spouse and I discussed this afterwards, and she agreed. We both felt more at ease during this visit than we had the first time. Perhaps we’ve become more relaxed and better able to receive our hosts generosity.

Speaking of generosity – I was amazed by it. I kept thinking that our hosts might have really sacrificed to serve us that meal. Sometimes you can only say, “Thank you.”

It seemed like the day came to an much too quickly, and it was time to begin our return trip to Phnom Penh. One of my few regrets from our entire trip is that we didn’t do another group photo like the one from eleven years ago. So a series of departing pictures will have to do…

Rice and children

Walking back to our van

A panorama from the front yard

A panorama from the front yard. (Very large file!)

As consumers across the United States were standing in line at midnight, impatiently waiting for Black Friday deals, I was halfway around the world being humbled by true generosity and hospitality. I was blessed more than I could possibly say.

Thank you.

I had arrived in Cambodia with lots of thoughts about Advent and Thanksgiving swirling in my head. However, Thanksgiving Day turned out to be a low-key event for our family. We had returned from Siem Reap the day before, and we basically spent the day relaxing/resting/recovering around the home of The Guest Complacent.

At some point, one or more of my girls must have picked up my camera…

The most memorable portion of my day may have been getting to tag along when Mr. Guest Complacent took the moto to pick up the meat for Thanksgiving dinner. Who would’ve thought that just riding around Phnom Penh could be so much fun for a foreigner?

Thanksgiving dinner was good, but not too extravagant. At some point, I simply said to myself, “I’m thankful to be here, and I’m thankful for this meal. I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful that I don’t have to think about Black Friday.” And that was about it. It didn’t need to be all showy in order to be a Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving dinner

Oh – and we had a corn tapioca for dessert. I was thankful for that, as well…

And we had a friend join the meal…

And that was about it. Given all my pre-Advent/Thanksgiving/Black Friday thoughts, there isn’t a whole lot to be said for the day itself. Perhaps there will be more when I reflect on Thanksgiving, day 2.

Coming up: A trip to Mesang

I’d like to frame this part of the story of my family’s trip to Cambodia by introducing (belatedly!) Christine Sine’s invitation to other bloggers to join her in some Advent and Christmas reflections. I’ve been following Christine’s blog, Godspace, for a while, and I was intrigued in early November when she proposed a “synchroblog”. There would be two questions for everyone to consider:

1. On November 23rd: Jesus is coming: What do we expect?
2. On December 28th: Jesus came: Did we get what we expected?

I say “I was intrigued”, but as it turns out, I was also too busy getting ready for the trip to participate in the blogging part of the exercise. However, the question of expectations stuck with me all throughout our trip preparations. My thoughts (mostly without actual answers to the questions) went something like this…

What do I expect? I really have no idea. I’m about to immerse my family in a foreign culture at the beginning of Advent. The season will be stripped of all of its cultural baggage that it carries here in the United States. We will see both poverty and riches. There will be many things that my children can’t fathom right now – things that they’ve never been exposed to before. There will be things that I only begin to imagine. How will they respond? How will I respond? I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to the trip…

A few days later, with the question still bouncing around my brain, I read CNN’s story on Wal-Mart’s Black Friday Deals:

They may as well call it Black Thursday. Joining a slew of other national retailers, Wal-Mart said it too will open its doors nationwide on Thanksgiving night.

Not to be one-upped by Target, which recently announced it would open at midnight on Black Friday, Wal-Mart said it will kick off its Black Friday deals at 10 p.m. on Thursday.

“Our customers told us they would rather stay up late to shop than get up early, so we’re going to hold special events on Thanksgiving and Black Friday,” Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart’s chief merchandising officer, U.S., said in a statement.

You could follow my link to read the rest of the story. You may not want to. My reflections on Christine’s original question continued…

What do I expect? I’m still not sure, but it’s got to be better than this. The Black Friday shopping tradition in the United States has always left a bitter taste in my mouth. For one thing, it glorifies our already out-of-control consumption. For another, we ignore Advent. We skip past the season of preparation. Shucks – we even skip past Christmas. We go right to the part we like: the gift giving of Epiphany. And we conveniently ignore the part that comes afterward: the flight to Egypt and the killing of the young and innocent in order to maintain power.

And now, we’re just going to rush through Thanksgiving as well. Why don’t all these retailers just stay open all day Thanksgiving? Wouldn’t that be so much more convenient for all of us? A four-day shopping weekend to kick-off a whole month of consumption?

I am so glad that I will not be in the country when all of this is happening.

And all of that was in my mind when I had this thought a few days later…

What if it’s satire – this early store opening on Thanksgiving that Wal-Mart is doing? What if they’re actually being prophetic? What if their intent is to so exaggerate this Black Friday thing that it becomes a mirror that we hold up to ourselves to see our own selfish greed – our need to consume more and more and more. And what if we’ve all missed the satire?!

Nah.

Anyway – those were the thoughts that I carried with me to Cambodia.

Up next: Thanksgiving in Cambodia

According to The Monuments of the Angkor Group by Maurice Glaize, published first in 1944…

A trip to Beng Mealea, which in itself demands an entire day, can be combined with a hunting party, since the region is rich in both small and large game and wild animals; tigers, panthers and elephants, herds of oxen and wild buffalo inhabit the forest as far as Prah Khan of Kompong Svay in the east.

Happily, we did not encounter tigers, panthers, or any other dangerous wild animals. We did encounter a relatively little-visited treasure of the ancient Angkor empire.

Entrance pass for Beng Mealea

Beng Mealea (meaning ‘lotus pond’) cannot be dated by any known inscriptions on the temple. However, based on its architectural style, which is the same as Angkor Wat, it is assumed that it was built during the reign of Suryavarman II. In fact, the layout of the two temples is sufficiently similar that some scholars believe that Beng Mealea was constructed first as a scaled-down model of how Angkor Wat was supposed to look.

(Note that the temples face in different directions. Other than that, they are very similar.)

However, there is one significant difference that the layouts above are not able to reveal: Angkor Wat was never abandoned to the whims of nature, while Beng Mealea was overgrown until relatively recently. For whatever reason, I just love the atmosphere at these temples where things are overgrown. My emotional reaction here was very similar to my initial response when I first encountered Ta Prohm. The air is full of secrets and history. It would be easy to believe that the place was haunted.

Really, I don’t have much more to say about this place, but I do have lots of photos to share. I just couldn’t stop taking them…

After exploring for a couple of hours, we were ready for some lunch, which we enjoyed locally.

If I recall correctly, this is the place where our table top was simply a cross-section from a very large tree – large enough to fit nine chairs with ease.

After lunch was done, it was time to get home to Phnom Penh. We got in after dark…

The sun sets on our excursion to Siem Reap

Next up: Thanksgiving

After our boat trip to the Chong Khneas, the floating village on Lake Tonlé Sap near Siem Reap, we visited the Artisans d’Angkor silk farm in the afternoon.

Artisans d’Angkor is an organization that trains Cambodians in the artistic tradition of Khmer empire:

When the Angkor Empire with its regal builders was at its glorious zenith, thousands of craftsmen erected what is now considered one of the wonders of the world — the Angkor temple complex.

In more recent times, years of war and genocide decimated a great number of the heirs of this artistic tradition…

The Chantiers-Écoles de Formation Professionnelle, a professional training school, was founded to help young Cambodians rediscover traditional handicrafts and give them the opportunity to take part in the rebuilding process their country had undertaken.

Artisans d’Angkor was established as a natural offshoot of the Chantiers-Écoles project as a school-to-work transition for the young craftsmen that had been trained. The skilled artisans could thus be organized into a self-sustaining handicraft network.

- from the Artisans d’Angkor website

The tour at the silk farm was free – unless you happened to purchase any of the nice things in their store at the end of the tour. Not all of our family escaped unscathed…

The tour presented the entire process of producing silk, beginning with the life cycle of the silk moth…

Silk moth eggs

Silk moth caterpillars feasting on mulberry leaves. If I recall correctly, our guide said that the best mulberry leaves come from a plant variety that was originally cultivated in Thailand.

Hungry, hungry, hungry.

Middle Daughter with one of the worms. A few years ago, this blog featured interviews with Worm Woman. Evidently, my family still has an affinity for them.

A worker transfers the caterpillars from a consumed tray of mulberry leaves. Eventually, they are given a place to spin a cocoon…

Of the worms that spin cocoons, 20% are allowed to reach adulthood in order to reproduce and provide caterpillars for the next generation. The rest of the cocoons get baked in the sun…

These cocoons are heated in water to loosen the silk. Then they are carefully unwound…

If you look closely, you can see the individual strands. Forty strands are combined together to form one silk thread. Eventually, a piece of fabric that is one meter wide will have 5000 threads side-by-side…

Here, our tour guide introduces us to the natural dyes that are used for the silk.

And this is a display of some of those dyes…

This lovely red color comes from shellac – an excretion from the lac bug.

These silks display the variety of colors…

One of the things that I find amazing is that the all of the dyeing is performed before the silk is woven. If the fabric is to have a pattern, it is dyed onto the weft - again, before the weaving is done. Here, a woman prepares the weft for dyeing by knotting small strips of plastic (from grocery bags) around the thread.

And this is the weft after all the plastic has been knotted on, but before the dyeing:

This thread has been dyed and is drying:

Finally, the fabric is woven. Note the patterns in the cloth.

At the end of the tour, there is a small museum. The exhibits include tools, silk painting, and stunning examples of what can be done in the weaving process.

After the tour, I was not tempted by the extensive gift shop (FABRIC!!!) – although some of our family (who shall remain nameless) were. I was tempted by the iced coffee…

Despite my goofy look, it was good iced coffee brewed by The Blue Pumpkin, a place that I figure is something like a Cambodian Starbucks. (In other words, consistently good coffee, but never quite great. You give up the possibility of ‘great’ to make sure that you at least achieve ‘good’.) I also decided to taste some durian ice cream. Part of the reason for tasting the ice cream was that durian fruit is supposed to taste wonderful, but smell awful (according to the Guests Complacent, I think). Alas, I don’t think that the ice cream provides the full effect. It tasted good enough, but I didn’t get any nasty smell. Oh, well – my loss.

That evening (after another enjoyable afternoon cooling off in the hotel pool), we had supper at a buffet restaurant with the woman who was our tour guide ten years ago when we first visited Siem Reap. It was neat to see her again, as well as to meet a number of people in her family. The buffet had both Khmer dishes and plenty of food that my daughters recognized, so there were no problems getting them to eat.

Youngest Daughter has fun with the napkins.

Oldest daughter has an interesting mix of foods, including two fruits that she hadn’t tried before. She’s holding rambutan and the white fruit with black seeds and a pink peel is dragon fruit.

The buffet also had traditional Khmer dancing. However, unlike the previous night, the whole family was able to stay awake to watch this time. The girls loved it.

That concluded our time in Siem Reap. The next morning we departed for the return trip to Phnom Penh, although we stopped at one last outlying temple on the way home.

Up next: Beng Mealea

Ok – technically that video was probably recorded on the return trip. The point is the bumpiness. The flooding that occurred in the weeks before we visited had softened the clay in the road bed, leading to potholes that had been repaired with varying degrees of success.

While on the road (and also on the water – as the pictures below show), we could see a large outcropping of land: Phnom Krom.

Phnom Krom

Phnom Krom as seen from Chong Khneas

The top of Phnom Krom is the location of one of three Angkorian temples built during the reign of King Yasovarman at the end of the ninth century. (Phnom Bakheng, which we had visited two days earlier is one of the other two.) We didn’t take time to stop at this location, but continued on toward Chong Khneas.

Chong Khneas is the floating village on Lake Tonlé Sap that lies closest to Siem Reap.  At the end of the road from Siem Reap, there is a brand new boat terminal where one can pay $15 per adult for a ride out to the village.

Ticket stub

Unfortunately, most of that money is probably going to the company that built the fancy boat terminal, rather than the boat drivers. Nevertheless, off we went…

On the Tonlé Sap

The Ordinary Family (minus OS, who took the pic)

It wasn’t long before we were approached by some opportunistic vendors…

The man in the blurry photo (above) maneuvered their boat right beside ours, and the kid jumped right on over to sell us water, coke, and possibly a few other soft drink selections. Unfortunately for him, we were all packing water, as we did anywhere we went. Soon thereafter, a boat carrying a mother and two children also came alongside. One of the children was carrying a python with her, and offered some photo opportunities in exchange for a little money. Unfortunately for them, our girls were frightened of the snake.

One of the odd things about this little excursion was finding that there is a cell phone tower built in the middle of the lake. It’s powered by solar panels.

Tonlé Sap cell phone tower

Indeed, cell phones are one of the big changes in Cambodia since Ordinary Spouse and I visited ten years ago. Anyone who can afford one has one. In fact, the country was so eager to enter the wireless age that they skipped right over the wired age in many places. Mr. Guest Complacent told us that two different government agencies thought that they had the authority to sell the available wireless frequencies, meaning that there is now overlap in usage. Apparently, that’s still being sorted out.

A few kilometers out – two? five? – we started encountering floating houses. The village would have been even further out in the lake, but the water was so high this year. The boats were generally anchored down around water plants.

Apparently, there are about 3000 people living in this dispersed community. They are a mixture of  Khmer, Vietnamese, and Cham (an ethnic group now associated with the Muslim populations in Vietnam and Cambodia). Everything needed for a village (plus some extras) could be found somewhere: stores, schools, a Catholic mission, even karaoke bars!

Catholic mission

Water treatment

Karaoke bar

Pigs and chickens

Visiting this village made me a bit uncomfortable. It is interesting to see how people are able to live in unusual locations. At the same time, the villagers have become (at least in some sense) the tourist attraction. Given the open nature of the house boats and the close proximity at which we passed as we floated through some of the channels, we could have stared right into some of their homes. I certainly wouldn’t be pleased if you drove slowly through my neighborhood and peered  in through my front window.

And it is clear that this particular village has been changed by all of the visitors that it gets, as is evidenced by the visitor center – the floating visitor center…

The center had a number of attractions. Outside there were catfish and crocodiles to be seen:

Don't fall in!

Inside, there were some educational exhibits about the lake and the people who live there. There were also souvenirs, clothing, trinkets, and fabric for sale. Unfortunately, the souvenirs related mostly to Angkor and not to the lake. I was really hoping to be able to purchase the informational map that they had in the educational section of the center, but it wasn’t for sale.

On top of the visitor center, there was an observation deck:

The view from the top of the visitor center

Looking the other way from the visitor center

Boats come in various shapes and sizes

I also created a 360° panorama from the observation deck. But be warned before you open it: it’s a very large file. (Nor is it high quality, but hey – the software was free.)

After the visitor center, we made our way back to the boat terminal and to land. We gave our driver (an 18-year-old who lived in the village) a tip since we figured he wasn’t getting much from the fares that we paid. From there, we returned by bumpy road to Siem Reap. Lunch in Siem Reap was the “Guest Complacent special” – a mixture of whatever my in-laws thought would be tasty. On this particular day, we enjoyed two separate dishes featuring prahok.

Up next: an afternoon visit to Artisans d’Angkor

Our final stop in the Angkor area was Ta Prohm – “Ancestor Brahma”. This temple/monastery/university was built during the reign Jayavarman VII in honor of his family. After the fall of the Khmer empire, the temple was neglected until the 20th century. During that time, nature encroached on the temple, but didn’t completely engulf it. When restoration began, a decision was made to stabilize the temple, but not to actively remove the large trees that were present.

Ta Prohm

Ten years ago when our family visited Angkor, there were very few people at Ta Prohm. We could thoroughly explore it. Since then, the temple has been featured in a movie and is much more popular as a result. Certain paths are now delineated in order to minimize the wear of traffic.

The charm of Ta Prohm – at least as I’ve experienced it – is the struggle of nature and temple…

Middle and Youngest Daughters

The Adventurous In-Laws

Before we left for Cambodia, my daughters had read Mysteries of Angkor Wat, a children’s book by photographer Richard Sobol. On his website, he describes the process of writing the book…

Although I read many tour books and hired my own local guide to take me through the 1000 year old city of the vanished Khmer Empire, it was the local children who showed me the best surprise of all. The ancient temples are their playgrounds, dance studios, and history classroom so they were my best guides of all. I photographed for three weeks and on my very last day I got to see their most special secret place.

My girls really loved this book and wanted to find the “secret place”, which was…

It turns out that at Ta Prohm, there is a carving that looks remarkably similar to a stegosaurus – what the Khmer children in the book called a “Dee-No-Soh” (or some similar spelling). From the book, the girls and Ordinary Spouse had some sense of where it was. With a little bit of searching, they found it.

Middle Daughter with the "Dee-No-Soh"

Oldest Daughter at the "secret place"

A couple more pictures from the ruins…

Youngest Daughter in the ruins

Middle Daughter in the ruins

And one picture for my father…

I'd love to know what kind of spider this is.

After Ta Prohm, we were ready to call it a day. We went back to the hotel for a rest and some fun in their swimming pool. That evening, we had supper at the Temple Balcony. Ordinary Spouse and I shared a meal, and then our entire table shared three tapioca puddings for dessert: bean, pumpkin and banana. In my humble opinion, they were pretty awesome.

After supper, the restaurant presented traditional Khmer dancing. Alas – the girls were already asleep (and the rest of us were pretty tired, as well!), so we left early. Unfortunately, the girls had really wanted to see the dancers, so they were pretty upset when we got back to the hotel, and they realized that they missed the performance. (Fortunately, we remedied that situation the following night.)

The Temple Balcony

Ordinary Spouse and I shared this meal for supper

That pretty much wraps up Tuesday, November 21st.  We were ready for a good night’s sleep. Too bad we were still fighting jet lag. I was asleep quickly, but awake again by 4 a.m. Well – might as well start looking forward to another full day!

Coming up next: A floating village on Tonlé Sap

On November 20th and 21st, my family visited the Angkor area north of Siem Reap. On the second day, we started out at Angkor Thom and then returned to Angkor Wat in the second half of the morning.

Now that I’ve visited Angkor and some of the outlying ruins twice, I have some that I consider to be favorites. However, none of the others can match Angkor Wat for sheer “Oh, wow…” factor. I might regard some temples as more beautiful or intricate or compelling or mysterious or romantic – however you want to define all of those terms in relation to stone ruins. But that initial emotion of amazement and anticipation when the towers of Angkor Wat come into sight is pretty much incomparable.

Youngest Daughter looks toward Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat from a distance

Angkor Wat means ‘the city that is a temple’; it is likely the largest religious structure in world. Unlike the other temples at Angkor, the main approach is from the west – the direction of the  setting sun, which is associated with death.  In addition, the bas-reliefs are viewed from left to right – a layout that in Hinduism is used for tombs. For these reasons, Angkor Wat is believed to have been used as both a temple and a mausoleum for King Suryavarman II. It was constructed during his reign in the first half of the twelfth century (between 1113 and 1150 C.E.).

There is a fairly long walk as one approaches the main part of the temple – time to take in the magnitude of this structure, but also time to feel the heat from the tropical sun. One crosses the causeway (that can be see on the left in the pictures above) and then passes through an entry gate on the main wall. After that there is another long walkway before reaching the main part of the temple…

The walkway to the towers of Angkor Wat. The towers are shaped like buds of lotus blossoms. Note the restoration work in progress.

As we approached the central towers, Mr. Guest Complacent took us on a slight detour to see one of the libraries. These are intriguing little structures to the sides of the walkway and also found at other temples. (That they provide some shade and a photo opportunity is also a plus!)

The northwest library

My father-in-law and I looking at the architectural intricacies of the southwest library. Ordinary Spouse looking at us.

Exiting the library. Ready to explore the central towers.

My in-laws and I leaving the library

The view from the library

The central towers of Angkor Wat, viewed from the southwest library

After our visit to the library, the fun really started. We entered to the right and enjoyed the south and east galleries.

Oldest and Middle Daughters are glad for a respite from the heat in the Angkor Wat galleries.

In the south gallery, the bas-reliefs depict the army of King Suryavarman II:

These are some of the important people in the army (including the king). The more umbrellas you have, the more important you are.

And in the east gallery, we saw the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (also depicted at the south gate of Angkor Thom).

We also played peek-a-boo for a picture…

Peek-a-boo silliness in the gallery

Then we went further in and up into the central part of the temple:

Ten years ago, we climbed these stairs to the top of the temple:

The steep ascent to the top

This particular approach is now closed in the interest of conservation. Visitors can still ascend to the top, but there is now a new wooden staircase that has been built for that purpose.

During this visit, we didn’t go all the way to the top of the temple, since there were tired feet among us. Instead, we did some trekking around the inner courtyard…

Trekking around the interior of Angkor Wat

We teased the Daughters that they had been carved in stone…

The Daughters depicted in stone as apsaras

Listened to the acoustics in the Hall of Echoes…

Beating our chests in the Hall of Echoes

And marveled at things in general…

Pool for bathing

By this time, we had explored both Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. Looking back, I’m not sure how we managed to do both in one morning. Youngest Daughter was reminding us that we needed to stop for lunch. So we made our way back to the van…

The view from the central portion of Angkor Wat as we made our exit. The entry gate is the taller structure to the left in the background. From there, the walkway approaches (moving out of the photo on the left edge). In the center of the photo, one can see one of the two “libraries”.

For lunch, we visited a place that The Guests Complacent had been before. The last time they were there, they told the owner that they’d return, and the owner was thrilled when we pulled up.

We enjoyed one of our typical meals where we shared a number of dishes among our whole group…

Finally, we were ready for our final stop of the day: Ta Prohm. This temple received a lot of attention after the movie Tomb Raider came out. If you didn’t know that, just as well.

Next up: Ta Prohm

After our group finished going through Bayon, we were ready to retrace our route back to Angkor Wat. Nevertheless, we took some time to look at a few things as we walked back toward our van.

Baphuon

Some of us walked past Baphuon. This temple, though located within the walls of Angkor Thom, was built roughly 150 years earlier than the ‘Great City’. (Jayavarman VII oversaw the construction of Bayon around 1200 CE. Baphuon was built during the reign of Udayadityavarman II at around 1060 CE.) When Ordinary Spouse and I visited ten years ago, the temple was not in good condition and was in the midst of restoration. Today, much of that restoration has been completed. We didn’t take the time to look at the temple up close, but I took two pictures of the entire structure:

Baphuon. I like these two pictures.

Buddha

Meanwhile, two of my daughters wanted to see the contemporary statue of the Buddha that was located nearby. Youngest Daughter was a bit upset when Ordinary Spouse told she that she couldn’t walk all the way up to the statue, especially since there were supplicants present at the time. (Note YD’s face in the photo.)

Are we enlightened yet?

It probably didn’t help that the day was getting hot, even though it was only mid-morning. All of my daughters did wonderfully with the walking and hiking that we did, although we had to be sensitive to YD’s energy levels.

Terrace of the Elephants

After those two stops, we walked for a ways along the Terrace of the Elephants. This 300-meter-long platform may have served as a viewing platform for the king to review his troops or to watch other parades.

The terrace has three main platforms and two smaller ones. Here, my daughters stand at the south stairway that leads up to the terrace. The elephants hold lotus flowers in their trunks, which form the pillars.

Oldest Daughter sits on the terrace.

Youngest Daughter views a carving of an elephant  in the midst of battle. Note how it is picking up some animal with its trunk.

Garudas support the terrace as if it were the heavens (and in the process, suggests something about King Jayavarman as he stands on the terrace).

Prasat Suor Prat

After walking along the terrace, we all gathered again at our van, ready to continue our day at Angkor Wat. There are a series of towers across from the parking area known as ‘Prasat Suor Prat’. I remembered them from our last visit, and although I haven’t explored them, I find them to be visually compelling. Their use is unclear. There is a legend that ropes stretched among the towers allowed acrobats to perform. Another idea suggests that they held the jewels and other treasures of the king. They may have provided lodging for visiting dignitaries, or provided altars for people swearing loyalty oaths to the king.

Perhaps the most interesting explanation for their use is that they provided a means for divine judgement. Two people in a dispute would be forced to sit in a tower for a few days. When they emerged, one person would be in perfect health, while the other would be suffering from some malady. In this way, the gods indicate guilt or innocence.

From here, we all piled into the van for the short trip over to Angkor Wat.

Next up: Angkor Wat