Sunrise...Temples...Fruit Shakes

We made it to the sunrise!  Prakcchim picked us up at 5 on the dot and we headed to a lake to watch the sunrise. One negative thing about having a tuk tuk drive you everywhere is that you aren't forced to figure out the lay of the land.  Or to know exactly where you are at any given moment.  Which is why I know that we were at a lake, but I'm not sure which one.  Okay, I looked it up...I think it was Srah Srang.  The sunrise was amazing.  I took about 150 pictures.  I know.  I have a problem (but I did get it honestly from George).  Every site we go to has markets that sell souvenirs, scarves, guide books, etc. right outside the entrances and exits.  There are also hordes of locals who want to sell us things for one dollar.  For those of us who are familiar with saying "no grazie" in Italy, it's the same sort of thing.   I don't think I've told you all that we use mostly American dollars here.  They do have their own currency, the riel.  Sometimes we receive their riel as change.  I always have to think hard and do travel math when that happens.  One dollar equals about 4000 riel.  So anyway, as soon as we got to the lake, we were approached by some children offering us coffee and tea.  They also asked where we were from.  When you say USA, they all have the same little speech they do: "USA. Capitol, Washington, D.C., big cities New York, Chicago, L.A."  They also know the population and would probably sing the Star-Spangled Banner if they thought it'd help sell their wares.  Greg did get some coffee, and I broke down and bought ten post cards (the little children often sell the post cards and they always count them out for you in English with their sweet little accents) and a little flute/recorder looking thing that came in a little woven case.  Again, the sunrise was glorious and very much worth losing the sleep. 

Then we went to five temples (did you see breakfast mentioned? Nope.  Neither did I).  Going to see a dozen or so temples in one day is very similar to going to see a dozen or so churches in Rome all in one day...you say to yourself...I don't need to see another temple, then you bite the bullet and go and it turns out that the temple has some really unique feature that you hadn't seen before.  They are all unique and have something to offer.  Here are some notes on temples in the order in which we saw them, but not necessarily with names because sometimes I forgot to take pictures of the signs.

1.  Banteay Kdei...we were two of four people visiting this temple around 6:30 in the morning.  It's a jungle temple with some nice relief carvings and some cool overgrowth, although not as much as temple number two.

2.  Ta Prohm...this temple is famous for being in Tomb Raider, although I kelp thinkinge of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and I went on about it for quite sometime until RM corrected me.  This temple has the most jungle overgrowth of all the temples we've seen.  So very astounding to see.

3.  The Amazing Climbing Temple!  I loved this one but I don't know what its name was.  It was three levels and you could climb all over it and I mean all over.  If Mama Mia had been here to see my climbing, she would have had a heart attack.  We were the only ones at this temple when we were there.

4.  Chau Say Tevoda... This one had a very nice long entrance and the four paths leading up to it were accessible (most of the temples had four paths originally, but many of them are still covered with centuries of dirt and growth).  It was very peaceful here.

5.  Thommanon...There were beautiful leaves falling as we approached this temple.  It was starting to get hot too. Upper 80s again today.  But was still a nice and peaceful temple with some nice carvings. It is sort of a pair with Chau Say Tevoda.

Breakfast break!  We headed to one of the many tourist restaurants and I did what I had been threatening to do all morning, which was not have food...just have 3 Mixed Fruit Shakes, which are the freshest and most appetizing smoothies you'll ever taste.  These were rather large though, so I just had two.  RM had orange noodles with fried egg, coffee, and hot tea.  I shared the noodles and the tea a little but breakfast for me was all about the Mixed Fruit Shakes...which by that point in our morning seemed to come from heaven.  At one point I asked RM if that was his foot I was thouching.  "I'm not touching anything." I looked under the table and there was a cat.  And not a Button Cat.  It was quite adorable.  Dogs are everywhere, but you see the occasional cat as well.  We saw a man cutting big chunks of ice out of the back of his truck!  We then headed into the Angkor Thom group.

6.  Baphuan...one of the biggest!  Quite a maze...its old terrace is marked with the pillars that used to hold it up.  This was a bit of a climby one too.  We had a good time playing and taking pictures in the sunlit upper levels of long windowed corridors.

7. From there, we followed a path and saw a temple that was very Aztec-ish or Mayan-esque.

8.  The Terrace of the Elephants!

9. The awesome maze thing underground ish which is called the Terrace of the Leper King.

10.  At this point things really started to run together.  We did these last few by tuk tuk, riding them hopping out to see, then hopping back in.  Number 10 was mazy and somewhat overgrown and the exit shot us out by a lake which we were not expecting but which was cool.

11. Krol Ko was the water temple.  We walked out on a long dock type thing for ever over a man made lake to see a temple that we couldn't go into...only photograph, that was surrounded by water.

12. Ta Som...I only took one picture. I remember thinking how peaceful it was just to walk through.  Our tuk tuk ride after that one was complete with lots of livestock sightings!

13.  Elephant Temple!  There were at least 8 elephant statues. By this temple we were getting pretty templed out, but I loved seeing those elephants.  

14.  Sweet grass covered peaceful temple.

After that, we tuk tukked back to the hotel where we've been enjoying a repose. I got to see how tuk tuks get gas.  If you have been a faithful reader you might remember I mentioned bottles of dirty water beings sold by the side of the road?  Not water..,gasoline.

And soon?  We shop.  More later.