ah, so yesterday i was being boring and didn't go on the internet at all. but here i am.
yesterday was my last day of temples; so i went down to a different complex, called roluos, and then to angkor wat to take a last look. i still only lasted half a day and i'm definitely templed out now! i have also taken over 600 photos in 4 days, not bad eh?
so yesterday was:
17. lolei (roluos group) - just four towers, very damaged, but placed in this idyllic little buddhist temple; so all i remember are monks in orange and birds singing.
18. prah ko (roluos group) - this group is older than angkor thom/angkor wat, which explains why it's a lot more damaged than all of the other temples. still, some wonderful details (which i've become an expert at taking pictures of). it was also completely surrounded by nature, not as ta phrom was, just crickets and grass everywhere. throughout my three-day long temple visit i've done the following things: taken pictures of my feet in almost every temple, as to show the flooring, and taken pictures of all the different faces in the carvings. they're all very stylised but all so different. quite amazing.
19. bakong (ruolos group) - a huge pyramid which does look a lot like an inca temple. amazing. which makes you think - is there something that makes us all really the same, and we end up thinking and making the same things, wherever we might be born? but that was just me being philosophical whilst sitting at the top of the temple and looking out in the distance of the cambodian countryside.
and then i went back to angkor wat, as i said. took another good look at the galleries and the carvings, and when i felt like i was about to die went back to the guesthouse. :) this whole temple thing has definitely left me satisfied - i mean, the whole thing is just so amazing. how people a thousand years ago were building these things, these huge, magnificent structures, and each king would build himself a new small city, with the lives of thousand of people revolving around it. i wish i could already show you me my photos so i could explain better; but then i don't think anyone can understand until he's seen these temples with his own eyes.
the rest of the day was spent chilling out and finishing 'the da vinci code' (interesting enough, but it does sound like a load of bullshit sometimes, and to be honest dan brown is not a very good writer in terms of just... writing). in the evening i had a few beers with holly the ozzie and jim the brit, i.e. two people i've met here that are very very nice. beer lao is my new obsession.
this morning i went to the tonle' sap, which is a huge lake nearby siem reap, and there i took a boat and went around looking at all of these villages that are literally on the water (houses built on rafts, and shops, and schools). i think the thing i liked the best was one of the schools: the ground floor had two classrooms, and the top floor... a basketball pitch, surrounded by net as not to lose the ball! and then, kids going to school in tiny boats (some in plastic bowls), a floating church, women and their tiny boat-shops, full of food and drinks, and so many more. i found it amazing how these people live on and with water their whole lives. they get their food from the lake (apparently the tonle' sap is one of the most fertile lakes in the world), fish, reeds and weeds, they was themselves, their clothes and their plates in the water, they drink it, they also... well, use the lake as a toilet. it must be the most unhygienic lake in the world, but if you don't think about that - can you imagine living your life like that? i didn't even think something like that existed.
i have this list of things i've noticed and found interesting about cambodia in my head, and i keep forgetting them, so i better start writing them down... - cambodians love hammocks. and i agree with 'em.
- i've seen buddha shrines being built, you know that sort of buddha shrine every good buddhist has in front of his house? they make them out of cement, and slowly carve all of the details, and then paint them in gold, red, green, bright pink, silver. they are so kitsch - i wish i could take one home!
- i've bought a typical cambodian scarf (can't remember the name now), and what the guidebook said is true: people here use it for absolutely everything. as a hat, as a scarf, as a towel... they're checkered cotton; mine is blue. i might buy a bigger one later on.