Map from a sign at the welcome center; yellow highlights on the locations we visited this day and next.
The afternoon was dedicated to visiting temples. Savy related so much information that most of it transited my cranium without encountering a single synapse. I'm going to have to rely on the "always accurate" Wikipedia and Google to fill in the large number of blanks. (I also forgot to bring along the moleskin notebook I use to take notes at these times. I got to using the Notes function of my iPhone while in Peru, but that information flow was more spread out temporally.)
The first temple complex was Ta Prohm Like all the temples in the area, the entries are crowded with vendor stalls looking to sell souvenirs to the tourists. Some of the peddlers are quite persistent and it sometimes took several "no, thank you"s to get them to move on. I'm going to leave the main narrative to the photos, although there was a bride and groom with a photographer and attendants taking wedding photos among the ruins. I even took a few myself. We entered the east side of Ta Prohm and exited the west and its village of vendors.
We drove by the Ta Keo temple, stopping only for photographs from a distance.
Map from a sign at the welcome center; yellow highlights on the locations we visited this day and next.
Another map - this one with the places we visited this afternoon marked in yellow.
There was quite a bit of tourist commerce set up at the entries to these sites.
Hung performing the tour leaders' blessing (counting the sheep to make sure all were present).
Savy, our Cambodia guide.
The smooth stone on the right is sandstone, but I forgot what the rough stone on the left was.
Approaching the temple (with the crowds).
The east portal of the temple proper.
Some reinforcement to keep things standing.
One of the many trees that have taken over since the temple was abandoned in the 15th century.
Temple carvings.
More trees (why do I think of the ents storming Isengard from 'The Two Towers'?).
A pair of fallen columns.
I took this shot to juxtapose the yellow modern crane with the ancient columns and the tree in the background.
Jonathan posing by one of the trees.
One of the galleries of the temple. That's Albert ahead of me.
More carvings.
I think this might be a carving of Apsara (female spirits of clouds and water).
Ficus roots.
Some of the finer carvings.
A couple poses for wedding pictures amid the ruins (and crowds).
Although it looks like a stegosaurus, it's more likely a rhinoceros or a boar.
Looking back at the west side of the temple.
Stepping through the portico.
Ta Keo.
The third and final temple of the day was Angkor Thom. We walked through the east gate, and then up onto the wall on the south side of the portal. I found the four faces on the portal tower rather compelling. Because Angkor Thom is large (a 3 km/2 mile square complex — and I do mean square) there are no vendor stalls at these gates. we visited the Bayon temple and got a few snaps of orange-clad monks exiting the temple (with their iPads). What I hadn't expected where all the carved faces of the Buddha on the sides of the towers — reportedly 216 of them!
All the faces on those towers clearly mark the structure as a Buddhist temple. After making a circuit through the site, we stopped briefly at the Elephant Terrace (did you know that Laos was known as the Land of a Million Elephants?), and then proceeded back to the hotel. However, the bus got caught in festival traffic and most of the walkers hopped off with Savy and walked back to the hotel in order to be ready to go out to a demonstration of Cambodian arts and music. Jonathan had declared his lack of enthusiasm for the outing so we stayed on the bus with Tom and Carol until the bus was just to one side of our hotel. Hung then made the call to exit the bus and walk around the corner to the hotel entry.
The festival traffic was so thick that evening that we ended up having to walk to a rendezvous point to pick up the bus from the hotel, and later to the restaurant.
Walking up to the east entry to Angkor Thom.
The road is lined with these statues who appear to be in a tug-of-war using a serpent as a rope.
A tuk-tuk passes through the east portal to Angkor Thom.
This dragonfly obliged me by staying still long enough to get a snap.
Sheri takes a photo.
The wall that surrounds Angkor Thom (taken from the outside of the portal.
On the top of the wall, a path follows the wall south.
A view of the figures lining the road we traveled to enter the ruins.
The faces on the entry tower; one on the opposite (north) side; in silhouette facing east & west.
A longer view of the tower with a strangler fig root in the foreground.
Four of the 216 faces on the Bayon temple at the center of Angkor Thom.
Monks exiting the temple.
They paused and graciously posed for our photos. They are carrying iPads (or similar devices).
Some of the bas relief sculpture in the temple.
Another example of the tower with four faces in each of the cardinal directions.
Terrace of the Elephants.
In the lobby of the resort, Alan pointed out that there were a couple of crocodiles in a plexiglass pen.
This is a lotus bud with its leaves folded in a decorative fashion that was on our dinner table.
