After lunch was free and easy, Vanny, our van driver (that's his real name pronounced as Wani) brought us to a jewellery store, not quite a good experience there I would say, gems in there are quite expensive and they mix the artificial ones together so you wouldn't know which is which.
Later at night we went to watch the cultural show which is also a restaurant.
Buffet style dinner. Get to taste all kinds of Cambodian food, a little like Malaysian food except that it has tinge of Korean food taste.
Guess what is this. Kuih? Jelly? Fishball? For the older adults you should know... Ice-cream!!!
This is how we make ice-cream in the olden days.
We watched while eating, performers quite good looking. I think they are still studying, and this is their part-time job. Part of them stopped studying at 15 years old, even though the government subsidised their education at school, but to get money to buy uniforms and books are taxing enough for them and their families, coming out to work would be a better choice.
She's supposed to be a fish, looks more like chicken to me. Went 360 degrees just with one foot. Macho...
Showing their fishing equipments, how they fish.
Day 2:
Rise and shine, with such heavenly sight, I wouldn't want to get out of bed...
We visited the ancient temples at Angkor. There are plenty ancient temples there, we only visited Bayon, Ta Prohm and long time anticipated Angkor Wat. The history are around the same, just with different religious beliefs: Hinduism or Buddhism.
A little background history of Bayon Temple, got from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/cambodia/bayon-temple.htm
Bayon Temple is the spectacular central temple of the ancient city of Angkor Thom, which is located just to the north of the famous Angkor Wat in Angkor, Cambodia.
Angkor Thom was built as a square, the sides of which run exactly north to south and east to west. Standing in the exact center of the walled city, Bayon Temple represents the intersection of heaven and earth. Built around 1190 AD by King Jayavarman VII, Bayon is a Buddhist temple but it incorporates elements of Hindu cosmology.
Bayon is known for its huge stone faces of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, with one facing outward and keeping watch at each compass point. The curious smiling image, thought by many to be a portrait of Jayavarman himself, has been dubbed by some the "Mona Lisa of Southeast Asia." There are 51 smaller towers surrounding Bayon, each with four faces of its own.
Bayon Temple is surrounded by two long walls bearing an extraordinary collection of bas-relief scenes of legendary and historical events. In all, there are are total of more than 11,000 carved figures over 1.2km of wall. They were probably originally painted and gilded, but this has long since faded.
Temples there, are mainly made out of sandstones and some kind of igneous stones(Sopheap, our tour guide for the day, told us he is not sure where they get the igneous stones from, as there's no volcanic spots around, plus there are no volcanoes in Cambodia.) As igneous stones are hard they used to set a strong foundation for the temples. There are 2 rows of statues along the walk way towards the main entrance, at your left will be the gods, and at your right will be the devils, they are working together to look for immortality.
They have carvings on each side of the wall, showing their history during the war.
View from the top of the main entrance.
There were supposed to be carvings of Buddha on the wall, but due to beliefs in Hinduism of another King, he ordered to have all the Buddha carvings scraped off the wall. So these 4, want to impersonate the Buddhas. Hmmph... since when Buddhas dresses up so fancily?!
Lingam- Sign of fertility. At first we thought it was just some special design, representing Lingam. Women who couldn't conceive are to believe that after pouring water on it, and drink the water will get a child. Some people also believe that putting Lingam at the river side, will bring great fortune to the farmers, as the water will be used for the paddy fields and some other vegetation. After some time, our tour guide still thinks that we don't get it, so he briefly mention, it's the man's part and the woman's part. (yuuppp, exactly)
A platform where the events are held.
On our way to Ta Phrom. Need not say much, read below:
Here we are!!! Ta Phrom! It will definitely rings a bell when I mention Tomb Raider by Angelina Jolie.
Partially ruined.
This is how they store their gems and diamonds, just by putting it into the small (smaller than) pigeon hole.
Angkor Wat!
Aspara - Dancers/ Concubine (multi-purpose hehe) All the temples have these dancers carved on the walls. They are all different, from head to toe, you wouldn't get to find two with the same headpiece, hairstyle, dress etc. And there are roughly 2000 Asparas at Angkor Wat. Probably because of that, their kingdom did not last long... =S
Listening to Sopheap attentively. Must be the part about the multi-headed cobra, but they call it Naga, they have it at every entrance to ward evil.
Naga~
Really have no idea, how they built all this. So heavy, yet it's still nicely built. Sopheap says the buildings(there are 5 of them) are built so that they can be near to God. Made a flight of steep stairs, so that when people actually walks up, they slow down their pace, and have to bow down a little, a sign of humble.
I think they are worshipping or something.
Coming up: Siem Reap Part 3!!! and some "mysteries" from my rented room...