By Way of Asia

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Today we visited a number of temples - once again we took hundreds of pictures, but we’ve selected only the finest for your enjoyment. The temples we saw were:

• Pre Rup, which is quite red
• Bantey Srei, famous for its incredibly detailed stone carvings
• Bantey Samre, famous for nothing in particular (we were the only tourists there)
• East Mebon, famous for being next to West Mebon
• Ta Som, where the most interesting thing was the longest line of ants we’ve ever seen
• Neak Pean, which once was surrounded by enormous pools, but is now surrounded by enormous empty pits
• Preah Khan, which is supposed to be pretty cool but it started raining so we ran away

As you might be able to tell, as the day wore on we started to get weary of temples.

Siem Reap, Cambodia:  The next temple on the circuit was Bayon, known for its somewhat creepy face carvings that grace all four sides of each temple tower - 216 faces in total. Scholars believe the face is a combination of then-King Jayavarman VII (say that five times fast) and Lokesvara, a Buddhist deity. Of course, it also didn’t help that when we arrived at Bayon, what had been a beautiful day suddenly became overcast - and then it started pouring. Creepy.

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Our first temple visit was to the biggest and baddest: Angkor Wat, the crown jewel of the Khmer empire, built in the late 12th century. In case it doesn’t show in the pictures, this place is ENORMOUS - think pyramids, but less geometric and more lotus flower-y. Angkor Wat (along with the rest of the temples we’ve visited) is still a functioning temple, so there are lots of buddhas and monks and things.

Angkor Wat is only one of the many Temples of Angkor, so expect lots more pictures like this as we post entries from our other temple visits!