Cambodia Vacation Day 5: Stilt Village of Kompong Pluk

Cambodia Vacation Day 5: Stilt Village of Kompong Pluk

In the morning we had arranged a boat tour of the flooded forests of Kompong Pluk, a village with houses built on stilts and Tonle Sap, Cambodia's largest lake.

Our tuk tuk driver took us out of Siem Reap and through the beautiful Cambodian countryside before we arrived at our boat. 

On our boat there was our driver and a woman carrying produce.

On the way to the village we got to observe the unique ecosystem of the brown river and its surrounding trees.

We then approached beautiful Tonle Sap. The contrast of blue sky and expansive brown water stretched over the horizon and at a first glance it almost could be confused as a desert.

We then stopped at a restaurant that was built literally in lake. The woman with produce got out of the boat with her bags and headed behind the counter of the restaurant. I guess that's how you do grocery shopping when your restaurant is in the lake.

We then went to the stilt village.

After taking cruising around the town we were able to get out and walk around a bit. There were people drying small shrimp. I tried one and it was a good snack although quite salty. The town had a radio tower, an NGO and a school.

I found girls playing the people recess game in which they have to jump higher than an extended string, similar to limbo, but opposite.

After walking a bit more we got back on the boat, headed back to Siem Reap, spent some more time by the pool and then prepared ourselves for the  18 hour night-bus ride from Siem Reap to the southwestern coastal city of Koh Kong.

The night bus had 2 decks of fully reclined seats where you lie down and sleep. It had air conditioning but no bathroom.

With the help of a few podcasts, a mini bottle of whiskey and Tylenol PM I managed to get some sleep.

Cambodia Vacation Day 4: Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Cambodia Vacation Day 4: Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Ailee and I woke up around 4AM and left the hotel around 4:20 in order to see Angkor Wat temple at sunrise. We got there with plenty of time to spare.

After the sun had risen we walked around Angkor Wat. The most impressive feature of Angkor Wat is its enormous scale. (That little pink circled area is Ailee)

Next it was onto the temples of Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom's most prominent and awe inspiring temple is Bayon which features 216 large carved stone faces of Khmer King Jayavarman VII looming over you.

Bayon is truly a site to see.

Next we went to Baphoun and some other temples in Angkor Thom.

Baphoun:

Phimeanakas:

Preah Palilay:

Lastly we visited Preah Khan which was similar to Banteay Kdei in that it was devoid of people, and that you could walk, venture, and explore any which way you saw fit.

Due to the high temperatures and our early morning he called it a day in the early afternoon. We biked back to the hostel, showered, changed, paid $2 to use the neighboring hostel's swimming pool, and swam and relaxed by the pool.

That night we went out in the night markets again to do some extra gift shopping and were pleasantly surprised to happen upon a ladyboy dance performance of "Gangnam Style."

This was our last night's stay in Siem Reap. During the day the next day would go on a tour of the flooded forest of Kampon Phluk featuring a village of houses built on stilts. That next night we would leave on a night bus to Koh Kong on the southwest coast near the Thai border.

Cambodia Vacation Day 3: The Temples of Angkor

Cambodia Vacation Day 3: The Temples of Angkor

 

We rented bikes from the hostel and biked the 40 or so minutes to Angkor. I learned that Angkor Wat is the name of the biggest and most famous temple in Angkor. We decided we would save the best for last and go to Angkor Wat for sunrise the next morning
(See Day 4). We just wanted to get a lay off the land for our first day in Angkor.

We biked around the square shaped most around Angkor Wat and made our way to our first ruinous temple Banteay Kdei. The most impressive and surprising thing about Angkor is both the age of what you're looking at, and the pretty much unrestricted access you have to explore, touch, feel, climb through and climb on top of these nearly thousand year old ruins. You can run your fingers along centuries old stone carvings. The adventure of climbing through centuries old lichenous carved stone window frames onto mossy crumbling stone bricks was entirely thrilling. This particular temple was almost entirely devoid of people so it was quite easy to create the mental fabrication that you and you alone had discovering this ruin and that this was the first time this place had been seen by human eyes in centuries.

Banteay Kdei:





Later we went to another temple named Prasat Kravan. It was also not as popular a destination for tourists so we got to feel unhindered in our advertising. Again, we were able to walk inside the structures again with next to no limited access. Prasat Kravan is said to have served as both a Buddhist and later a Hindu place of worship. 

 

 

 

 

Angkor is very much a like a museum where you get to bike to each exhibit and get to climb on and touch almost everything. It's amazing.

We then went to Ta Prohm. There were many tourists at Ta Prohm because of its fame. Ta Prohm is the temple in Angkor that is famous for having been completely overtaken by jungle. It's a truly breathtaking and awe-inspiring place to visit.

Ta Prohm:



On another note, pop culture junkies mostly refer to Ta Prohm as The Tomb Raider temple because it was the filming location of the popular Angelina Jolie film.

At this point the humid sky, filled with heavy clouds, unleashed a solid downpour over Angkor.

We ran and sought shelter in a temple cavern. Looking out over the warm tropical rain and up into the treetops, Ailee brought up a great point when she asked me, "How long do you think the trees took to go grow that big."

When I quickly responded, "probably hundreds of years," the words sunk in and carried weight just how old these temples were. Looking at the gigantic tree's temple-crushing roots as they fed off the torrential downpour served as a  humbling reminder of nature's true dominance over the human landscape

After the rain stopped we visited Ta Keo which like the two previous temples was mostly devoid of other people. It was here that we climbed the narrow stairs on all fours to get to the third level of this massive temple

 

With day light permitting we only had enough time to visit the two temples Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon near to the front of the eastern gate entrance to Angkor Thom, the once biggest city in Angkor

Chau Say Tevoda:





Thommanon:

After visiting these two temples we then biked back to our hostel capping off a day of close to  20 miles of cycling.




We showered, changed and then headed into town for the night to eat, buy souvenirs and wander. Also it was time for my fish foot massage.

There must be over a dozen outdoor fish foot massage places in downtown Siem Reap. We picked the first one that offered unlimited time for two dollars and featured a tank of small fish and a tank of more medium sized, but still small, fish. It's outdoor for others to see and serves as good business advertising for these places when tourists walk by and see other tourists trying it.It was time to take the plunge. First it felt very tickly, it was hard not to laugh looking at my feet teeming with little fish and their little mouths on my feet and toes. I would pull them out momentarily and as I would be about ready to put them back in they would all gather at my anticipated point of entry, mouths hungry and tails and fins wiggling. Next I moved into being okay just as long as I didn't look down. 





Finally after being acclimated, I could look down at the little guys munching away.

Next I moved to the bigger tank and repeated the same aforementioned steps and mental processes. Their mouths were a little more aggressive and felt a little more pinchy, so I put my feet back into the smaller tank.

 


We called it an early night in Siem Reap in anticipation for our 4am wake up time for tomorrow morning where we would then ride bikes to view a glorious sunrise over Angkor Wat.