jwg | Entries tagged with cambodia

As part of our wonderful Ken Mc Farland Asian trip we spent 8 days in Cambodia. We flew from Bangkok to Phomn Penh and spent two nights there; then flew to Siem Reap and spent 5 nights before flying back to Bangkok.

Cambodia has been an independent constitutional monarchy since 1953 after having been a French colony since the mid-19th century. It was victimized by the Vietnamese war. For many centuries in the middle ages it was an Indianized kingdom. Most of the temples were built as Hindu temples and then later converted to Buddhist. Wikipedia says that ~95% of the people are Buddhist. Many of the temples were ravaged by invaders searching for gold or by weather and earthquakes. Some restoration is in progress.

We visited many temples, some in very bad condition, several markets and shopping areas, took several boat trips, and saw a wide variety of housing in the countryside. We had several different guides that gave lots of explanation (I'll confess that much of it went in one ear and out the other). Tuk Tuks are a major form of transportation - they are motorcyle-drawn rickshaws that can carry 2-4 people. Roadside gas stations were often a little stand with a few old water bottle filled with fuel. The people were quite friendly. The food was quite good; our hotels were very nice with colossal breakfast buffets.

There were 20 of us on this trip, 11 of which we'd been on other trips with; it was a very nice crowd. This wasn't a dancing trip as are some of Ken's but essentially all the people on the trip are Contra, English Country, and/or Scottish dancers and thus we had a lot in common.

Click here for slideshow of a selection from the whole trip:

We went to a BBQ restaurant that had a dance show. The above picture was a different meal, but poetic license…. It was traditional Khmer dance-drama often referred to as Apsara Dance. The last one (last two pictures here) was called The Fishing Dance depicting rural life and young love with fishing baskets and flirtatious glances.

As we were getting ready to leave Cambodia we stopped by a market (near or in Siem Reap - I don't remember). This had a densely packed section of food vendors and then along the street there were numerous shops selling hardware (I like seeing hardware stores in foreign countries), housewares, shoes, and food either to cook or eat. And fish massages.

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I thought these were pretty clever. Many of the traffic lights - for both pedestrians and cars - had count down timers.

We visited Les Artisans d'Angkor - Chantiers Ecoles, a center with young artisans that creates various kinds of ornamental sculpture, lacquerware, etc. (Note the french name so has probably been there for quite a while). The purpose is to find other employment and products to benefit rural communities so they can be dependent on things other than fishing or farming.

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We went to the Silk Farm of Puok. We saw aspects of the whole process. Silk worms eating leaves, harvesting silk from cocoons, dying the silk, winding it on reels, various aspects of weaving, and then the shop where you could buy silk goods. This was also a school where women were learning the trade.

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Silk Processing video

Working with Silk video including use of repurposed bicycle wheels

While visiting the temples at Preah Khan we encountered several instances of musicians playing instruments. Here are two videos. You can see on the first that they were all amputees.

On the morning of Jan 16 we bussed from Phnom Penh to Takeo where we took a boat to Phnom Da where there were several 6th century temples. You can see some of the housing and transportation forms.

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Short video of view from boat

We went to visit another abandoned temple. Again there was sign describing mine removal - 438 antipersonnel and 908 UXOs (unexploded ordinance).

The tree roots are really taking their toll.

Nearby there was a swamp and then a small village.

Click for slide show of some tree infringement on temples:

Click for slide show a nearby swamp and a small village:

In this section we encountered quite a few signs about mine clearing. Hopefully they were all found. These temples have been abandoned and are in pretty bad shape. Some of it was human destruction (sometimes searching for gold) but you can also see the effect of trees.

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Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple complexes in the world. It is surrounded by a moat. It was built by King Suryarvaman II in the 12th century and later repurposed as a Buddhist temple. It is a national symbol and appears on the Cambodian Flag.

Needless to say there were lots of tourists there.

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Video look at one of the many bas-reliefs

We went by Tuk Tuk (the road was too narrow for the bus) to the Angkor Wat complex through the South Gate with its statues depicting the churning of milk and went on to Angkor Thom, an ancient capital and the Bayon temple. Again some pretty amazing carvings.

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A video walk through part of Angkor Thom

Here is a video showing the consequence of elephants walking around:

Current Mood: cheerful

We visited Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre, two classic temple with example of Khmer art. There is some serious restoration going on at Banteay Samre. There were some splendid carvings in these temples. Also there was a local village where they were processing palm sugar. Some local shops sold clothing and palm sugar among other things.

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A video of some stalls where they were selling stuff

A quick walk through Banteay Samre:

Tonle Sap lake is a huge fresh water lake near Siem Reap in Cambodia. About 20,000 people live on it in floating or stilt houses on the edge and on an island. Several shops were in the village and also along the way. The lake depth varies by as much as 10 meters between the dry and wet season. Needless to say they do lots of fishing. You can see a wide variety of boats.

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Video of people processing a net's worth of fish.

Siem Reap is the center of a region containing a huge amount of temples. Most notable is Angkor Wat which we visited a couple of days later. Our first morning there we visited several of the Ruluos Group including Preah Ko and Bakong. These are some of the earliest Khmer temples (hindu) built in the 9th century out of sandstone and mark the beginning of Khmer classical art. They;ve been converted to Buddha temples. There were often lions to be seen guarding the place, but also some oxen. Some of these structures are in the process of being restored. Also there was a lovely active monastery.

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A video to get the sense of the temple site.

On February 4, several weeks after we left, Cambodia's former king, Norodom Sihanouk was cremated. He was very beloved, became king in 1941 and led the country to independence from France in 1953. He abdicated in 2004 in favor of his son.

We visited the Royal Palace on our first day.

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We arrived in Cambodia, the official beginning of the trip and were first staying in Phnom Penh. During the morning while awaiting to be able to check into our rooms we took a first look. I don't actually remember exactly where this was, but it was pretty interesting with a wide variety of things to see.

Here we encountered some of first of many nagas, five headed snakes - or other numbers of heads. Snake workship refers to the high status of snakes (or nagas) in Hindu mythology. Many of the temples in Cambodia were originally Hindu structures.

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