Kbal Spean
This is the location of the "River of a Thousand Lingas", Linga meaning "penis image". Now, before you start laughing like a five-year old, you have to realize that Angkorian culture did not hold similiar tittilations about looking at/making pictures of penises. In fact, at the end of the river there is a hollowed-out area where the king at the time would bathe in the running water after it had been "made holy" by running over all the penis carvings upstream. I have Western Culture to thank that I don't think I'd ever want to bathe in water that many other penises had been in, ceramic or otherwise.
When we got to the top of the 3 km path, I noticed several bumps in the river, which was pretty interesting. I hopped over a rope fence to look at them. Using guesswork, I assumed they were made to aerate the water for fish. Taylor and I argued for a bit over how old they were, but assumed they must be recent because otherwise they would have worn out. We kept going up and up, until finally we met a local who was working on maintenance, and he showed us around a little. There were some interesting carvings in the rock where we met him.
So, we walked back down the river where he pointed out the Linga. Well, guess what? All those bumps I had been stepping on earlier were actually the bases of what used to be stone penises coming up out of the river. Had we not met the guide, we would never have realized it! He showed us quite a few things, including an arrangment of linga and some other carvings that was supposed to represent a vagina. He also showed us the bath that I already mentioned. At the end of the tour, we gave him a dollar for his troubles, which seemed like the right thing to do.
Banteay Srei
Next, we went 18 km back down the road to a temple that is well known for its ornate carvings, and considered the best in the Angkorian group. It was rather small, but incredible to look around. There's not much to say here, but I can post a few interesting pictures.
This was around noon, and I looked down and realized how incredibly small my shadow was. Living at 45 degrees above the equator normally, I have actually NEVER seen it this small, so I took a picture. Doing some rough calculations in my head...We're about 11 degrees above the equator right now, and its near the summer solstice, so 15 - 25 degrees means a 10ish degree angle shadow. Science!
We ate lunch one of the various restaurants next to the temple (postcard? no bracelet? no Okay, maybe later you want one you buy from me. No!) while our tuk-tuk driver rested in a hammock.
Beng Melea
Finally, to the climax of the trip...Beng Melea. While the same size and floor plan as Angkor Wat, it has been utterly consumed by the forest, while is extremely cool and sad at the same time. We were hoping we could roam free, but a guide found us and we had to follow him, which actually wasn't too bad. He would stop me from doing things like scaling walls and other stupid ideas, but he was very informative and brought us on a tour of the temple through areas that we otherwise could have missed.
Of exploration was aided alot by a wooden walkway that was constructed in 2004 for the filming of a French movie called The Two Brothers, but we also spent a significant amound of time scaling rubble.
While most of the ceilings had caved in, there were several huge arched hallways that could be explored.
It was surprising how fully nature had taken over the entire structure. Here is me, standing where the ceiling would have been on top of one of the library, looking at nature driving back civilization.
It was a long day. Taylor rewarded our tuk-tuk driver, Gao, by giving him a beer, which he knocked back surprisingly fast.
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