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11 June: Siem Riep
Today we decided to sleep a little later than yesterday, 30 minutes to be exact. We found Tedt waiting at the corner at 05h30. We drove first to Preah Khan, which had housed more than a 1 000 teachers and had been a Buddhist university. The temple is characterized by multitudes of small corridors and built in a crucifix shape. We met up with a Dutch girl and Israeli guy who had met up earlier, they were complaining about their Tuk Tuk driver at first, but the topics soon fanned out as we discussed our travels and future plans. We took some more pictures at a tree engulfing a wall before greeting them and heading off to the next temple.
Preah Neak Pean, in all honesty was a disappointment when viewed in the 21st century. The temple is a small rising with a statue of a horse being carried by men, within a pond. In the 11th century this was a spectacular temple to behold. The temple was set in a square pool almost 4m deep, with four smaller pools laid out symmetrically around the centre, each with an interesting subterranean carved fountain. The temple was originally a massive reservoir feeding the other pools. We again met up with our previous acquaintances discussing the history, before moving on to the next. We would inevitably meet up with them at each temple we viewed during the day.
The second last temple was Ta Som, according to our guide, Pol Pot had stayed here during the revolutionary years of the late 1970's. The temple was small and not very intriguing, but a tree at the end added to the photo opportunities. We had one last stop to make on the long route, Mebon. Mebon was a huge temple complex also built in a pyramid style, what is it with the Aztecs, Egyptians, Khmer and their pyramids to mention a few! We again created some amazing stone frame photos, which would have made professional photographers jealous, before discussing with Elana and Shahar, the option of doing the furthest temples together. We had planned to do them tomorrow, but it was now only 10h00 and we were a little angry having paid $10 for a short "long route".
We bargained with our driver and in the end we headed to the furthest temples, almost 50km away for an additional $16. The trip was painstakingly slow, but this was in actual fact a blessing, as we could take in the life of rural Cambodians and the country side. We arrived at Kbal Spean, only discovered in 1969, where we had to scale the mountainside to reach the river 1500m away. The first 800m was the worst, painstakingly ascending the incline until we reached a road that evened out a little. The river, known as the river of a thousand Linga's, is filled with intricate carvings into the river bed, almost a 1000 years before. How they had not been completely eroded in this time I would not know. After this we headed down again, before heading to Banteay Srei.
Banteay Srei also known as the Jewel of the Angkor crown, for its impressive and elaborate carvings, was not nearly as large as we expected. However the condition of the carvings that we saw was by far in the best state of most of the temples we had visited. The walkway into the temple is also surrounded by two large dams following the length of the entrance to the temple. It was time to head home and honestly today was a day we were all wat'ted out! Our guide wanted to take us to a palm tree plantation to witness the processing of the oils and different uses of the plant, but along the way a huge storm broke out and the plans were scrapped. We even had a branch blowing off a tree hit us, luckily only a palm tree branch so it's not to heavy. Further along the road we found a larger branch that had broken off and blocked access to the road, forcing locals to come out in the heavy rains to saw it up and remove it lest it cause an accident.
In the end we were forced to stop along the way, the rains were to heavy and while we were comfortable in our plastic insulated tuk tuk, our driver on the motorbike was becoming drenched even with his poncho. We sat there on the side of the road, awe struck at the speed and intensity of the storm. We opted for a card game and after Shahar explained the rules we started playing what is similar to rummy. We had just finished the first round when the storm subsided enough to continue with the journey, Tedt came over and explained about how the palm tree plant works and how they process the material but few of us caught all of it.
Back home we were dropped off in the market, where we went in search of food. Most stalls were still closed, luckily we found one that had started preparing food while the others were still unpacking. The four of us sat there all ordering the same, noodles with vegetables and our first smoothies/milkshakes in Cambodia - very nice, they put sugar in as well :-) After lunch we went our separate ways, we headed to the market where we merely wandered through not finding anything that really excited us. After this we went in search of a pizza place, but were unable to find any that were decently priced. Interestingly one can make a pizza a happy pizza for only a dollar or two!
We headed home and ordered chicken, vegetable and rice. The food came after 30 minutes and we started eating, both tasting something that wasn't quite right. After a few more spoonfuls we deduced that it was the chicken that was off. At this point I had already eaten 5 pieces of them. We pushed it aside and continued with the rice and vegetables which was quite nice. Not expecting them to do anything about it, I went to the manager after dinner and asked him to taste the chicken,. He bit a small piece of it after which he spat it out almost immediately, he made a note in the book and I thought it was settled. Tonight would be the first sleep where we would not have to wake up in darkness!
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