Floating, Blessings & Cooking

 

Chong Kneas Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake

This morning we were able to sleep in and enjoy the excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel. Of note were the multiple variety of made to order noodle station, the banh mi station, and the crepe suzette station! We drove south towards Tonle Sap Lake, South East Asia's largest lake and part of the Mekong system, for a boat ride to visit one of the floating villages. We learnt a lot about life in a floating village, along with the fact that Mr Makara grew up in one! His family transitioned to land in 2005. He recounted how going to a supermarket was like heaven where you could pick any food you wanted and the air was so cool with air-conditioning. He was fortunate to be the youngest son, and thus his older siblings (6 of them) worked to send him to secondary school. He was then fortunate enough to win a scholarship for further studies and avoided conscription to be where he is today. His personal stories made the floating village come to life. Being low season, the waters were currently only 1-2m deep! However during the wet season, the lake could swell up to 12-14m. The village would then move closer to the mangroves for protection. 

The breakfast buffet

This was the soup noodle station. There was also a dry noodle station

Lush rice paddies as we neared the waterway

The ramp down to the water is super steep as we are in dry season

Our little boat

The water is not very deep!

This village has a church

Sometimes different generations of the families tie their house boats together

Um...there's a crocodile farm on one of the boats

Not as big as Australian ones but still decent sized

The houses are reasonably spaced out!

Next up was a visit to Wat Damnak Pagoda for a private good luck blessing ceremony performed by the local monks. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect a fascinating Q&A session with 2 gentle and smiley monks! They took the time to ask about us and our time in Cambodia. They spoke English quite well and used our guide to translate long and in depth answers to our questions about their life and Buddhism. At the end of the ceremony, they tied a lucky red thread around our wrists dunked in holy water. The chat took quite a while and by this stage we were starving. It was lunch and then back to the hotel to escape the worst of the heat. 

The 100 year old temple

Our guide talked us through what we had to do and then took photos for us lol

Good luck blessing ceremony

Today's drink of choice. Dragonfruit shake and mango shake

Lunch for today. Yummy as usual

At 3:30pm we were picked up for a short visit to Satcha Handicraft Centre. They aim to support the handicraft community by helping with further training in the craft themselves, training rural youths, as well as other skills such as English, marketing, and business to encourage the artisans to be able to support themselves with their skills. It was lovely to see but it was HOT. The concept shop sold the items made by the artisans. You could appreciate the more modern and western influences on the designs compared to others we had seen at other shops. Some of the pieces were elegant and beautiful but they were so so pricey...

Different types of crafts were on display in different huts

Weaving

Wood carving

Rattan

We had a sunset to catch and so continued on to our Cambodian cooking class. We drove to the traditional Khmer home of Ron and Sina in rural Krobei Riel village. Ron took us around his farm and told us about his family and his crops. They had an ingenuous method set up to use cow dung for gas and for manure. It was rather heartbreaking when he told us that he would only get paid USD 0.50 for a kilo of his salad leaves. Ron and Sina were friendly and gracious hosts. The cooking class was well set up with all of us having our own cooking stations. We prepared 3 traditional dishes, samlor koko soup, beef lok lak and mango salad. The ingredients were prepped for us and Ron helped those who were in remedial cooking while Sina demonstrated in front of us. Mr Makara did the translating as neither Ron nor Sina spoke English! Grandma was on the side, laughing at us. It was as authentic as you could get. We had so much fun and it was nice to know that we could produce such tasty food! We ate our meal enjoying the sunset over Mr Ron's crops very grateful that we had to privilege to experience this. We also all agreed that we didn't really fish mint...because it tasted like fish!

Our driver finally got to relax

Mr Ron proudly showing us around. His spinach

Only USD0.50 per kg :(

His corn field. Planted only 22 days ago

Aprons on ready to cook

Sina on the right preparing the ingredients

The vegetables for our fish samlor koko soup

This would become a mango salad

Working hard!

How good is my beef lok lak

My mango salad

Our fish vegetable soup

Grandma laughing at us, but mostly at Heather

Our table set up to view the sunset

Enjoying our hard work!

Temples & Dances

 

Statues lining the bridge crossing the moat of Angkor Thom. 54 on each side

A 0450 am start surely couldn't be good for anyone...luckily the body still hasn't quite adjusted to the new time zone which made it a little less painful. The early morning start was to view sunrise at Angkor Wat, Cambodia's iconic temple, and a site on many people's bucket list including ours! 

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire from the 9th to the 15th century and covers a big area. At its peak it had over 1 million residents compared to a paltry 8000 in London. The modern archeological site of over 400km2 was now protected by UNESCO and contains the remains of temples such as Angkor Wat, the Bayon at Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm made famous by Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. 

It was pitch black as we made our way over the original bridge crossing the moat to the West Gate of the Temple Complex. We were given so much detail about Angkor Wat, I won't even try to replicate the information...other than everything was incredible in so many respects -architecturally, archaeologically and artistically just to name a few. It was hard not to be in awe. Our exploration started with the simple viewing of sunrise just inside the West Gate before exploring all 3 levels of the nearly 900 year old structure. As a word of warning, the steps leading up to the 3rd level was very steep and children under 12 were not allowed up presumably for safety reasons. 

It was great to have a private guide as a small group as he could direct us away from the throngs. Mr. Makara also happened to be excellent at phone photography! Little did we know that we would also have a lot of fun having our photos taken. He tried his best to direct us but our posing and facial expressions were sadly not quite instagram worthy. However, we did get many many great photos of ourselves! There would never be any doubt that Belinda, Serena, Heather and Fiona visited Cambodia together!

The hotel had packed a "breakfast box" for us ready for pick up at the lobby by 0450

Our chariot awaits

Ticket Office. Ah...the early start was to not be too far behind the other 2000 people also wanting to see sunrise

Almost like Indiana Jones

Mr Makara found a great spot where we could sit with unobstructed views

The sky turning from black, to purple then to orange

Lights are on! Let's go

But first let's take a funky shot with the palm trees

The sun rising

Incredibly detailed carvings

Gallery of Bas Reliefs

Level 1 of 3

Steps up to Level 3 Central Tower. Steep

A group photo not taken by Mr Makara

View out from level 3

All the guides waiting below...as numbers are capped climbing up

A recreation of what the original wooden roofs would have looked like

Exiting the East Gate

We are at the most important part of the day...breakfast. We had a "picnic" breakfast organised in the garden of one of the local families which was a lovely touch. The breakfast was simple but tasty. Hot coffee, pastries and fruit. We donated half the hotel breakfast to the family and driver and ate the other half as the hotel had packed some eggs!

Our breakfast table

Our driver had prepared cold towels for us! What a champion!

Such a pretty set up

The all important Cambodian coffee

The hotel packed breakfast

What was inside...

One Temple down. Two to go. While Angkor Wat was a state Hindu/Buddhist temple, Ta Prohm was a Buddhist ancestral temple. Ta Prohm was a temple dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII, the King (we shall call him J7 from here on) who oversaw the completion of Angkor Wat (started by his father). It was made famous by the filming of Tomb Raider, which saw Angelina Jolie climbing and running over the ruins which had been reclaimed back by nature. This was actually a pleasant site to explore as the big trees provided much needed shade.

One of the scenes was filmed here. There was a long line for photos so cropped the people out!

Very typical to see the tree hugging or "growing" out of the ruins

Some fun photo moments thanks to Mr Makara!

Belinda, Fiona, Heather and Serena were in da house!

There probably was a movie scene shot here too but I truly can't remember because they were all starting to look the same by now...blasphemy!

A little bit of fun and silliness

The cover photo used in some guide books!

Last but not least, we visited Angkor Thom, the last capital city of the Khmer Empire. We visited the very quiet Death Gate first. Surprisingly there was NO ONE else there for a good 15 minutes. Naturally we took the time to practice taking good videos. We received instructions on how to walk, how to film and how to pose. What better setting than a nearly 8m high ancient Khmer structure?

The Bayon Temple was the last place on our to do list. Bayon temple was famous for the many smiling faces of Buddha, 216 to be exact. Although the face was said to be that of none other than J7, the only King I can remember from the Khmer Empire. The only other fact I could retain was that J7 married 2 sisters, albeit one at a time. Energy levels were flagging. The heat was getting oppressive. Mr Makara kept the visit efficient. He did the spiel in the comfort of the van a/c and we sprinted across the structure within 20 minutes, stopping only to take magnificent photos in Apsara dancer poses. It was then time to seek respite from the heat in the hotel.

Death Gate. The pose seems rather inappropriate...

Bayon Temple

King J7

One of the King's wives. Is that Louis Vuitton?!

One of the 5 bridges into Angkor Thom

The awesome Mr Makara

One last photo of us taking a photo of us

A late lunch but a yummy lunch. Most importantly a lunch in A/C

Today's choices

After a good nap, it was time for our Apsara Dinner Show. It was a buffet dinner with 5 dances. The buffet dinner was surprisingly excellent! And the cocktails cheap! The dances were similar to other SE Asian native dances but enjoyable nonetheless. We liked how they broke up the dances, so we could keep going back to the buffet. It was a great way to finish yet another jam packed day!

The tables and stage reminded us of the Aulani luau

More tables at the back!

A noodle station

Cheers!

Drinks!

The 2 princes in the Ramayana story

Apsara Dance

One of the talented dancers