Siem Reap - Cambodia (Part 2)

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.

                      The lady second from the right looks like Tiara Jacquelina. 

Day 2:

Rise and shine, with such heavenly sight, I wouldn't want to get out of bed...

                           Sun rise from the balcony of my hotel room at Somadevi Hotel. 

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.

The trunk and roots are growing bigger and bigger each day, destroying the heritage. One day, the whole thing will collapse, so better get the cheap Air Asia flight now, before you missed your chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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...

Siem Reap - Cambodia (Part 1)

15-18.01.2009

Small family trip to Siem Reap. Guess everyone's knowledge on Geography and History has gone a little rusty, so here I shall present a little background about Kampuchea(called by the French) or Cambodia(by the English) or "Jian Bu Zhai"(by the Chinese).

Its capital city is Phnom Penh. Remember Tonle Sap? Yeah, the biggest lake in SEA, located at Cambodia. Actually in Khmer(Cambodian language), Tonle means lake, so to those PMR markers, if the student accidentally missed out Tonle, just spare them all right, because to have Tonle Sap Lake would only mean Lake Sap Lake, no apparent meaning. Remember Sungai Mekong? Yeah, it goes across it. Remember where Candi Borobudur is located? Nope, not at Cambodia, it's at Indonesia, haha. Angkor Wat is located at Cambodia, one of the finalists of the Wonders of the World.

From Malaysia to Cambodia, it takes roughly 2 hours. Time at Cambodia is GMT +7, meaning slower by one hour from Malaysian time. Cambodians are mostly Buddhist, speak Khmer language. Most of them can speak English, it's like their second language. Currency... you can have some Riel, not really encouraged to get them unless you can finish using them at the end of the trip. They are happy with USD(which has more value). If they happen to sell you things in Riel, and you got mixed up with its currency, to make it easier, just divide by 1000, then it will be the price in Ringgit Malaysia.

They are really friendly people there, so just built some rapport, then bargain(but of course not bargain till they can't really earn nuts from it). Normally, you shouldn't get things from the first stall, as that is the place where they set real sky high. What to get there? Scarves, wooden/ marble carvings, T-shirts on Cambodia, and lots of rubies, amethysts, sapphires, topaz, aquamarine etc. Remember while buying gem stones, it is crucial to ask them to test whether it is genuine. A trivia on gem stones: genuine gem stones if got heated up by high temperature (above 1000 Celsius), it will not melt, will not change colour nor shape. After letting it cool for a moment, it will look just as before. Yet of course, you wouldn't want the salesperson to burn one by one so that you know that it's authentic, so just ask them to test it using a diamond detector will do. Warning: Even proper jewellery stall has artificial gem stones, so beware.

My mom, pretending she's not excited, haha. Look at the carvings on the chairs. Total awesomeness!

All right, more on my trips now... We went for 4 days 3 nights. Started of with a visit to Tonle Sap!!! During the journey from our hotels to Tonle Sap, we saw an egg vendor beside our van, so asked him to stop so we can get some eggs.

It's flavoured eggs!!! Pepper flavour, guess it's a new recipe for us Malaysians. They crack a small hole, pour out the egg, separate the yolk with the egg white, mix the egg with pepper and probably with some other ingredients which I'm not sure, then pour it back into the shell and cook it. Taste delicious... Total awesomeness!

Below the eggs, the cage look alike thing is actually a heater. Saw some green or yellow thing oozing out from the eggs? Green means it only has egg white with the ingredients, yellow means there's additional yolk in it.

On our way to Tonle Sap, the houses all look like this. The higher it is from the ground the better, as they have yet to have good drainage system, it is common there to have flash flood.

For this, they don't have foundation beneath, it's floating on the water itself, which is why the area is also called the floating market.

Family pic at Tonle Sap

Awhile later stopped at a (floating) souvenir shop. They rare crocodiles, for skin, food etc.

Only fed once a week with fresh water fish. Claimed to have better quality skin and meat if fed this way, instead of feeding with chicken. Trivia: Crocodile has no tongue.

One thing about people at Cambodia, most people still use logs or charcoal to cook their meals.

Seen this before? They are Vietnamese,who are also leaving on the water, were asked by their parents to sit in a tub and row their way to beg for money. Kinda pain sight to see.

We went back for lunch. Famous food would be Amok, which means steam. There's chicken amok, beef, fish, coconut. Coconut amok would not mean they cook with coconut flesh or dry coconut, they put the dish into the coconut and steam it together.

Family pic at the stairs, nicely decorated. Clearly I'm the cameraman =]

Coming up: Cultural performance and the remaining days at Siem Reap!

p/s: Skipping HK trip and life at Utar at the moment, due to high demand!