Cambodia - Day 1 - Angkor Wat to Floating Homes

 Cambodia – Day 1 – Ta Prohm, Angkor Wat and Floating Village Boat Tour

We arrived the afternoon before (Oct. 16) to a city full of water!  Fortunately the water wasn’t in our hotel but the street our hotel was on had about 2 feet of water on it.  It wasn’t until our last day in Siem Reap that we saw the pavement of the road!

Ta Prohm

What a day!  All 21 of us boarded 2 buses which drove us to the temple of Ta Prohm.  Ta Prohm or Rajavihara – meaning Royal Monastery is unbelievable.  There are massive 300 year old strangler fig trees and silk-cotton trees here which are almost swallowing the temples.  It was constructed in mid 12^th-early 13^th century A.D. when King Jayavarman VII was ruling.  This temple also is famous for the one used in Angelina Jolie’s movie Tomb Raider.

While we were all looking around and this security guard became my instant tour guide and suggested many places for me to take photos which I would have never found on my own!  Of course, a small payment was given in the end.  He showed me this small face carving among the roots of a tree that was supposedly just appeared naturally.  He jumped the barrier fence and went for a close up photo of it for me!  He also showed me a tower in the temple where if you stand in a particular spot and slap your upper chest area it echoes with a strong bold sound.  The overall detail of the temple and the massive rooted trees almost brings an “out-of-this-world” feeling to it!

Angkor Wat

Next we went to the massive temple of Angkor Wat (wat means temple).  This temple is absolutely breathtaking both architecturally and artistically.  We hired a tour guide which significantly helped us understand this famous temple.

bas-relief

Taken from my Siem Reap Visitor’s Guide “It is a massive three-tiered pyramid crowned by 5 lotus-like towers rising 65 meters from the ground level…  At the apex of Khmer political and military dominance in the region, Suryavarman II constructed Angkor Wat in the form of a massive ‘temple-mountain’ dedicated to the Hindu god, Vishnu.  It served as his state temple, though the temple’s uncommon westward orientation has led some to suggest that it was constructed as Suryavarman II’s funerary temple…. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat and an exterior wall measuring 1300 meters x 1500 meters.  The temple itself is 1 km square and consists of three levels surmounted by a central tower.  The walls of the temple are covered inside and out with bas-reliefs and carvings.  Nearly 2000 distinctively rendered apsara carvings adorn the walls throughout the temple and represent some of the finest examples of apsara carvings in Angkorian era art.  But it is the exterior walls of the lower level that has the most extraordinary bas-reliefs, depicting stories and characters from Hindu mythology and the historical wars of Suryavarman II.” (www.canbypublications.com)  Apsaras are heavenly numphs or goddesses, also known as devadas.  Bas-Reliefs - a raised sculpture technique.

In the afternoon we took an hour bus ride to board a boat to tour the Floating Villages.  Since the rivers were overflowing it was a little difficult to distinguish between the houses on stilts and houses which were floating!  Either way the impact by the floods was clearly seen here.  Although it was heart-breaking to see all these families’ homes mostly covered in water, I felt that everyone’s house was a perfect “National Geographic” photo opportunity!

Thought of the day:

~A smile is a universal sign which goes a long way.~