Travel 006 : Cambodia : 24 Dec : Angkor Thom

The day started a little late.  I was ready to board my tuk-tuk at about 11am (after the usual morning things and a brench).  Today, my journey continued within the Angkor Thom city.  I started off with Bapuon.  Normally all these temples have a requirement of women to dress moderately.  But specifically at this temple, they were enforcing that women wear a dress at least knee-length.  As usual, this is another temple that has a little pyramid structure.  Beginning with a long corridor, the path leads into the outer wall of the temple.  After a open space, the pyramid structure starts.  After the Angkor Wat, it became my habit to look for any sculptures (small or big) that enact any Hindu God or any scene from Hindu epics.  Though this temple is not known for such sculptures, I was not disappointed for the effort I took to look for every small wall.

Here is a scene from Ramayana with Rama and Lakshmana











Here is a scene from Mahabharatha with Bishmar on the bed of arrows

The city complex also contains the royal palace, elephant and lion terraces.  After walking around, tuk-tuk dropped me at Ta Keo.  It is another pyramid like temple.  Though there are many shiva lingas are seen in different temples, here they preserved a Nandhi (a bull vehicle of Shiva) though it is kept at a side.

Travel 005 : Cambodia : 23 Dec : Bayon

Leaving from the Angkor Wat temple, we entered into the city of Angkor Thom.  Passing through one of the entrances into the city, the first building that is at the end of the road is Bayon.  Bayon is the temple with giant faces at every side of every tower that can be possibly built within.  Bayon is also built like a pyramid structure surging upwards as we go toward the center.  the most striking fact is that at every terrace, short towers that raises, contains faces at its four sides.  Standing at one terrace, one can come very close to staring at the face.

As a trace of Hindu religion, there are some Lingams still left at one of the wings.  I spent more than three hours in the Angkor Wat and so when I came out of Bayon, it was almost 5pm.  As most of the buildings are closed at 5pm, I decided to stop for today and return to the Siem Reap city. 

On the way back, stopped at the entrance of the Angkor Thom city (that I passed through before).  At every possible bridge, walkway throughout Angkor complex, it is common to see the Naga at both sides pulled by Deva / Asuras.  This entrance as well has the scene in front. 








With these, I returned to Siem Reap on the tuk-tuk, paid the day's charge (8 USD).  By this time, Hong became a good friend and so we agreed that he will come back at 8pm with only his bike (without the tuk-tuk carriage) and we can go look at some of the night-life scene.  It really helps to have a local-language speaking friend with you to visit such places.  I was fully exhausted with all the walking, climbing (and the hot sun).  Took a shower, walked around the night markets (interesting that there are many street markets in the area and all of them call themselves as some night market), and had a good Indian dinner.  The journey continues with more temples tomorrow.