Last day of temples

Friday February 7th

We had an early start today to visit some more temples in the relatively cooler part of the day.  The tuk tuk driver was the same one who picked us up from the airport so it was like catching up with an old mate.

 

Our driver

 Our first stop was Pre Rup temple which was built in 961 or 962.  It had a very steep staircase at the front with a sign saying “Be Careful”.  Our Occupational Health and Safety people would have fainted at the sight!  As my knees are still crippled from our first day of temple touring, I stayed at the bottom in the shade, hoping that John would take notice of the sign and not come crashing down at my feet.  We were very fortunate to be visiting at the same time as a couple of lovely young ladies were doing a photo shoot at the temple, so we sneaked in a couple of shots.

A beautiful spot for a beautiful girl to be photographed

Our next stop was 38 kilometres from Siem Reap which gave us the opportunity to observe the surrounding countryside along the way.  There were many small villages with people living a very basic life, scratching out a living from selling firewood, food items and clothing from ramshackle stalls along the roadside.  Despite the lack of ‘mod cons’ and the fact that everything was dusty and very basic, the people here had the same beautiful smiles that we’ve seen everywhere else.  We were pleased to see many young schoolchildren in clean smart uniforms riding their bikes to or from school.  Most of all, I was delighted to see a young boy sitting on the dusty ground reading a book.

When we reached Banteay Srei, another 10^th Century temple, there were hundreds of tourists there.  The temple is quite small, but its attraction is the beautifully intricate wall carvings.  The temple is made of red sandstone which is apparently an excellent medium for fine detailed carving.  It was difficult to take photos that would do the temple justice as it was so packed with people.

 

Banteay Srei Temple

Beautiful intricate carvings

Monkey statues guarding the antechamber of the central sanctuary

Beautiful little kids begging. Hopefully the future will bring better things for them

Popular spot, this one!

Another temple, another lovely young lady

Finely detailed carvings

Next was East Mebon temple, yet another 10^th Century structure.  The sculptures here include 2 metre high elephants on the corners of the walls.

By this time we were starting to overheat and feel that we really had seen enough amazing ancient buildings, but we had been told that Preah Khan was worth a visit, so we decided to make that the last stop before heading back to town.  This temple dates from the 12^th Century and is mostly unrestored.  According to Wikipedia, it was the centre of a substantial organisation, with almost 100 000 officials and servants.  

Preah Khan Temple

After seeing so many temples over the last few days, my favourite aspect of this temple was the lady selling fresh pineapple near the exit.

I'm becoming addicted to fresh pineapple

We headed back to Siem Reap, getting another glimpse of Angkor Wat on the way past.  The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming and dozing by the pool.  I was trying to find out ‘whodunnit’ in my Agatha Christie book, but my eyes wouldn’t stay open.  There wasn’t a butler in the story, so it must have been someone else but Hercule Poirot is on to it.

Once we were suitably revived, it was time to head out for dinner.  We went to the same little diner/restaurant that we went to last night and had another lovely meal for next to nothing ($4 for two meals and two drinks).

  

The menu - note that most meals are $1.25.  This page doesn't show the
"Fried Frog with Deeply Soaked Lemon", but we passed on that one anyway

The daughter of the diner owner.  Way too young to ride
a motorbike, but that's what she did when Mum needed
some more ingredients from the shop.  She also took her
9 year old sister on the back

We spent the rest of the evening strolling through town and stopped for a cup of tea in a lovely café/restaurant that had comfortable lay-down-snuggle-up seats.  Our real motive for going there was so that I could use their loo, but the cup of tea went down very nicely.

We haven’t really made plans for tomorrow, but the museum is a possibility.  Alternatively, we might just be lazy which, after all, is what holidays are all about.