On the road to Banteay Srei - spirits high! At 20km north of Siem Reap the journey took an hour, but we enjoyed it thoroughly, whizzing past small villages and markets along the way and trying to capture the moment.
Banteau Srei was crammed with coaches and tuktuks which took us by suprise but we fought through the crowds to get to the best spots. The temple is small but extremely beautiful, decorated throughout with intricate carvings which are almost perfectly preserved.
The main temple was closed off to tourists which was a bit of a shame, but you could still make out the ape-men that guarded the entrance... no not Al, the statues behind him!
We had a bit of a celebrity moment - as we walked around admiring the carvings a group of Japanese guys approached us and asked if they could take a photo of us. 'Of course' we said, handing them our camera not realising that they wanted to be in our picture too! It was a little odd to say the least, it must have been Al's cool hat that did it.
On our way back to the main Angkor Wat area we popped in to the Landmine Museum, where the funds go into raising awareness of landmines and supporting local orphans. It is full of displays on the use of landmines during the Khymer Rouge era and the attempts to dismantle them. Designed to maim rather than kill, around 6 million landmines still exist in the Cambodian countryside and peoples' lives are still being destroyed by them.
After a delicious Cambodian Amok curry for lunch we had a quick look at Srah Srang, a lakeside temple (baray).
We crossed the road and entered the temple of Banteay Kdei. The entrance is guarded by a huge face cut into a tower, very imposing. We entered and walked through a pasageway full of dancing apsaras - as you can see I did a rather good impression:
This temple was in a state of ruin which added to the atmosphere there. You could almost imagine how the explorers came across it hidden in the jungle.
Our penultimate temple of the day was the spectacular Ta Prohm. Famous for the trees that cover the ruins and its 'romantic' atmosphere - the only problem was that every Tom, Dick and Harry from California to Beijing had decided to come to visit that afternoon so the romantic atmosphere was somewhat missing. We still managed to get some great photos, and at times escape the crowds.
Here you can see a a number of tourist groups crammed into a tiny area all taking photos of each other infront of a tree. We just sat watching them for a while until they moved on and we had a small window of opportunity to take an uninterrupted photo.
Al ensured that I took another photo of him with one of the apsara girls before we left the temple:
After dodging the crowds of Ta Prohm and picking up a few silk scarves along the way we ended the day on top of the magnificent Ta Keo, a huge mountain-like temple built entirely of sandstone. It looks like a huge legoland creation, due to the fact that it was never completed and the stones were not carved into shapes.
The stairs were the steepest and narrowest we had climbed yet and we made our way up the mountain-temple on all fours, being careful not to lean too far back...
After catching our breath we watched the sun as it began to fall in the sky, covering the giant blocks in dark red shadows, and chatted to local children selling stone carvings.
This was our tuktuk driver outside Ta Keo, a nice and quiet man, and 37 years old - we couldn't believe it, he looked about 20 - but that's Cambodians for you! On the way home he stopped the tuktuk and pointed at the sun - there was a partial eclipse, we were careful not to stare directly into it but it was very exciting to see and ended the day on a very special note!
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