Isn't She Pretty In Pink

The temples of Angkor are nothing short of spectacular, breathtaking, magnificent, stupendous, awe inspiring and any other adjective you'd think would fit here. They cover a pretty large area outside of Siem Reap, though the big ones (Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Phrom)are relatively close together. Lonely Planet said that one of the farthest from town, Bantey Srei was not to be missed. So today I checked it out.

My tuk tuk driver for the past 3 days, Prik (no joke) picked me up in the morning and said "no problem" when I told him where to start. He said it was far but that was okay. I think it's about 35 km outside of town. He decided, however, to take the highway there for a few miles...where we were almost run off the road a couple of times by trucks carrying grain, fruit, motorcycles, chickens, fuel and about 15 cambodians (all on the same pick up truck of course). The ride took about an hour and went through some fairly scenic, albeit extremely poor farmland. I noticed that there were no power lines running anywhere and noted that we had to be headed back to town by 3:30 in case we broke down. Still enough daylight to hitch a ride or walk if I had to. All par for the course in this country, I suppose.

Bantey Srei is small by comparison to most of the other temples (Angkor Wat is the single biggest man made religious structure on earth) and it's hindu. It was commissioned at the end of the first century and is the Temple of Athena Nike of Angkorian art (whereas Angkor Wat would be the Parthenon). While all the other temples were commissioned by kings, this one was not; it was likely a scholar, cousin/tutor of the king. Smart man, as Bantey Srei translates to "Citadel of the Women." First noticable difference from all the other temples i've seen: it's pink. It is stellar in its preservation, covered inch for inch with some of the most ornate carving I've ever seen - the temple is dedicated to Shiva so the reliefs all relate to him. There are varying stories, but legend has it this temple was built by women as no man could carve something so elaborate. Indeed. There were even hot pink lotus flowers blooming in the moat.

There are two other temples in the general vacinity of Bantey Srei which most people see. You're pretty far outside town, so why not make a day out of it is the mentality. I was thinking about it - until we passed the Landmine Museum. Some of these temples are dangerously close to many of the thousands of landmines that still exist here. I was far enough into the sticks already. Didnt want to run the risk of falling out of a temple into the wrong place or Prik getting run off the road.

By far Bayon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon)was my favorite - with over 200 gigantic faces staring at you from every angle. I think I spent 4 hours there yesterday. There are too many to mention, all amazing in individual ways. So long as you can get past the two biggest annoyances here: kids trying to sell you shit everywhere you turn(I lost my temper with one of them yesterday who spoke surprisingly good english and told me that I said I'd buy something from her and kept pulling at my shorts. Poor or not, kids can still be brats and this little girl rubbed me the wrong way)and the goddam japanese tour groups. I swear if they were removed from this place there would be half - maybe 3/4 the amount of people here. It's astounding and has ruined many a photo opportunity for me. But after awhile I just stopped taking pictures. It's too overwhelming and my normal-size lens point and shoot would never do any of these monuments justice. I still can't figure out how to upload photos here, or I would. I'm mastering the art of the self portrait with background.

New Year's Eve came and went without my even knowing. My guest house, run by an Australian man and his Thai wife, is on a quiet dirt road off the main strip. I had dinner in town and got back to the guest house around 9, hoping there would be some other guests there. Instead it was the owner and his wife and 1 other person at the bar. I had 2 beers and could barely keep my eyes open. They'd obviously been drinking all day long and werent making much sense. I was in bed by 10. Christmas and New Years were pretty much an afterthought this year, but 2007 definitely ended in a good place.

Tomorrow I leave Cambodia and fly back to Bangkok (my original plan was to take a boat to Battambang then go over land, but the more I talked to people and read about the over-land journey, I learned that it could take anywhere from 7-13 hours, busses break down, the Thai border police at Poipet are awful and the children theives are worse. At 150 bucks it's a ripoff for a plane ticket, but it's saving me a big hassle and a sore ass. Worth it, I hope.