--Sunrise--We woke up at 3.30a.m to catch the sunrise at Sras Srang, but to our disappointment, the weather was bad in the early morning! We still went out hoping the rain would stop, but the rain became heavier after we reached Sras Srang. So sadly, we did not managed to catch the sunrise. It's still quite early in the morning, but Dino had no plan for us to return to our guest house. Instead, we continued our journey to our first destination....and we were really too early. Lolz~
(And later we found out a typhoon passed by Cambodia & "attacked" Vietnam again. Thus, it rained the whole day. Super cold okay...)
--Banteay Srei--
We had some spare time after we reached the temple's market area. So, on our way to the washroom, we saw a big plot of land covered with lotus leaves. Lolz~ Only a few got lotus flowers la.
It's hard to take the lotus flowers shot. Firstly, it was raining. 2ndly, I had to zoom quite a lot in order to get a close shot of the flowers. Managed to get a slightly clear one.
The entrance of Banteay Srei temple, a.k.a "citadel of the women". We were even earlier than the ppl who checked our temple passes. Lolz~ The good thing for being early was we could "own" the temple all by ourselves, before the tourists flood in.
I loved the door frames of the temples.
If you're observant enough, you should be familiar with this symbol now. Yes, it's the symbol of women.
Banteay Srei is a 10th century Cambodian temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. Banteay Srei is built largely of red sandstone, a medium that lends itself to the elaborate decorative wall carvings which are still observable today. The buildings themselves are miniature in scale, unusually so when measured by the standards of Angkorian construction. (Credits to Wikipedia)
A reason why I loved Banteay Srei was because of the very exquisite carvings.
This is another symbol of women. (Correct me if I'm wrong, my trip buddies)
Lovely lotus flower carved from a block of stone.
The buildings here were quite small, so I had to bend down if I wanna go in or cross over.
Shiva Nataraja is depicted on the eastern gopura of the inner enclosure wall. (Credits to Wikipedia)
Another pediment shows the burning of Khandava Forest. (Credits to Wikipedia)
A closer look at the carvings.
It has been speculated that the temple's modern name, Banteay Srei, is due to the many devatas carved into the red sandstone walls. (Credits to Wikipedia)
The combat between Vali and Sugreeva is depicted on the western gopura. (Credits to Wikipedia)
Water lilies...
This is Phnom Dei, a 272m hill near Banteay Srei.
We had our breakfast at a nearby stall. Not a cheap meal though. This was my soup noodle with egg. It's actually magi mee...lolz~ It's nice to eat something hot in a cold day.
--Kbal Spean--It was still raining when we reached our 2nd destination. Seriously, I did not know that we would be having a true hiking up the hill. Lolz~ We did not have raincoats with us, so imagine we used one hand to carry umbrellas while we used another hand to climb up the rocks.
1500m....here we go!
I was sighing throughout my hike, because my bag was wet, my beloved Nike shoes were full of mud, and my pants were dirtied. Hahaha! See the muddy path...
Up we go~
We gotta see lots of large boulders along the path.
Nice view of the Kulen Hills...
I thought we climbed 3 big "hurdles" throughout our hike. The "hurdles" were to climb the bloody boulders. It's easy to climb up, but the way back was terrible, as the rocks were quite steep. I had to keep my camera at the later part of the hike as I wanna "free" my hands, and I did not want my cam to drop. So, I did not take pic of a super dangerous part of our hike. Basically, there was a staircase on a big boulder, but there's no straight path to reach the staircase. We gotta climbed up a few small rocks, stretched one of our hands to hold the staircase for support (while Dino hold on to another hand), and stretched one of our feet to the boulder. Then, we pulled ourselves up to the boulder before we climbed up the staircase. (And we gotta do the same when we climbed down! Ho...it's a lot more "exciting" as there were more ppl coming up by the time we went down.)
Muddy muddy path, and the rain got heavier!
Kbal Spean is commonly known as the valley of a 1000 Lingas. It consists of a series of stone carvings in and around the Stung Kbal Spean river. The motifs for the stone carvings are roughly three: myriads of lingams, depicted as neatly arranged bumps that cover the surface of a rock; lingam - yoni designs; and various Hindu mythological motifs, including depictions of gods and animals. (Credits to Wikipedia)
We went to Kbal Spean at the right time. During the dry season, you could find no water here. Good thing is you could see the carvings clearly la, but without the water effect, the view of Kbal Spean just looked different.
Still got to see carved water lotus here.
Looked at the tree trunk...interesting 人字形.
Carving of a Hindu god.
The river...
Found a green snake...too bad, I could not get a clear pic of it after n times.
Symbol of women appeared again...submerged in water.
We walked over to another highlight of our hike...the waterfall. It's not magnificent, but the water was still quite nice. We had a group photo just beside it.
On our way back, KH & E.W fell down due to slippery rocks. KH had quite a bad fall (no big injuries though), while E.W was lucky as she got her hands to support her.
Thanks to the weather, I did not feel tired at all after our hike...I did not even pant. Aunt Jo was proud of herself as she wanted to give up at the 500m mark initially. (Hooray~)
--Lunch--
We had lunch beside Sras Srang. Specially requested to return to the place as we did not have a good look at it when we were there early in the morning. We waited quite a while for our meals to arrive. This was my grilled fish with lemon butter sauce.
--Sras Srang--It's a pity that we could not see sunrise here. It would be a damn beautiful scene man! Nvm...a rainy scene seemed to be nice too. The place seemed to be a little "emo"...lolz!
Sras Srang means "royal bathing pool," and was far larger than any pool today—at least 350 by 700 meters. Sras Srang was modified two centuries later by King Jayavarman VII, who faced the dikes with sandstone and added a beautiful boat landing (not in the picture). He also shortened the reservoir slightly. Sras Srang is thought to have been a natural lake, which helps explain why it still holds water. (Credits to Cambodiatrip.com) Anyway, I will return to the place again if I visit Siem Reap next time. Gotta see my sunrise :p
--Tonle Sap, Kompong Phluk & the Flooded Forest--Our third destination. On our way to Tonle Sap, we saw the real Cambodian kampong life along the roadside. It was a long ride into the village (not Kompong Phluk), and it was very bumpy as the road was muddy. Chong Kneas is another floating village which is more well-known than Kompong Phluk, but I did not want to go there as there were lots of tourists scams going ard. Luckily, Sony's itinerary got what I wanted :)
The boats, which could serve as "water taxis" for the locals.
The super muddy road after the rain.
Saw a group of cows on a small island in the lake!
An isolated house in Tonle Sap.
Ho this house was unique...as it was made of concrete & bricks. It's like a "bungalow" in the lake.
Our driver was a 16 yr old boy...
After a dunno how many mins ride, we finally saw many "floating houses" built near each other. We arrived at Kompong Phluk. Dino told us that during the dry season, the villagers can use bikes to travel about. (Amazing...) We could not see the road now as it was submerged in water.
If you think we only saw floating houses, then check out this "floating temple".
A group of tourists riding sampan...
Before we check out the Flooded Forest, we gotta change to the sampans as the boat was too big to go into the forest. These two girls were the boy's sisters...and they rowed HM, SC & KH's sampan. Salute to the two young & tiny girls.
View of Kompong Phluk.
The boy's mum was my sampan's driver. Our sampan was probably heavier as Dino was with us too. Lolz~ 辛苦了!
I forgot what the cages were for...
Check out the lives of the villagers...
Little kids on the sampan...
A woman selling things on her sampan.
I never know that the flooded forest would be so breathtaking....it's spectacular! Imagined the whole forest was partly submerged in water...
We gotta lower our heads at times, or else we would knocked into the stems of the trees...
The flooded forest~
The water waves looked different from norm too. When the boats passed by the forest, they would create huge waves and our small sampans would shake quite a bit..lolz~ It was fun la.
It started raining again.....haiz~
There were lots of vegetation growing in Tonle Sap.
A small temple at the forest...
The horizon of Tonle Sap...you could never see the borders of the lake. It's just damn big. Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia and is an ecological hot spot that was designated as a UNESCO biosphere in 1997. he Tonlé Sap is unusual for two reasons: 1) its flow changes direction twice a year, and 2) the portion that forms the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with the seasons. From November to May, Cambodia's dry season, the Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh. However, when the year's heavy rains begin in June, the Tonlé Sap backs up to form an enormous lake. For most of the year the lake is fairly small, around one meter deep and with an area of 2,700 square km. During the monsoon season, however, the Tonlé Sap river, which connects the lake with the Mekong river, reverses its flow. Water is pushed up from the Mekong into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 square km and its depth to up to nine meters, flooding nearby fields and forests. The floodplain provides a perfect breeding ground for fish. (Credits to Wikipedia)
Our boat ride back to the starting point was a lot more faster. The rain became heavier and our poor driver was totally drenched.
--Dinner @ Pub Street--We finally returned to our guest house for a short rest. Cleaned up our damn dirty shoes and wore our flip flops later on. It's a little odd wearing flip flops as I hardly wear it back home. (Anyway, E.W bought 2 pairs of flip flops for our trip..lolz!)
Before we find a restaurant for dinner, we saw "Blue Pumpkin", a shop selling bread, cakes & ice creams. It's on Lonely Planet la, so not surprised to see other tourists here.
Our dinner for the day was at Cambodian Soup restaurant, which was just beside Red Piano. The ambience of the restaurant was not too bad too...and they got BBQ food.
The ladies "yam seng" with their bloody cheap Angkor beer. It was only 0.50 USD leh! Cheaper than my cocktail.
Aunt Jo's BBQ beef skewer. The food was taken away from the skewer and served on a plate.
Our common drink..."Angkor Wat", a non-alcoholic cocktail. It was so nice~~~~
Our BBQ food 1...frogs~ HM had two of them..lolz!
BBQ food 2...chicken wings.
HM & SC's pineapple rice with lots of prawns.
E.W's stirred fried veggies.
KH & my curry with rice. I had fish while KH had prawns. The curry was just too sweet for her liking...hehe!
--Psar Chaa (Old Market)-- We did not really toured the Old Market as the things they sold were quite similar to those in the night mkts. Anyway, HM & SC were looking for "beach dresses" and we happened to pass by a row of stalls at the Old Market. After some bargaining, the two ladies bought their dresses while E.W bought herself one too. (Btw, HM & SC...are u gg to wear the dresses out for our next gathering? Haha!)
Returned to guest house and watched my Thai drama...hehe :p
Our gifts from the guest house, their bed runners.
Check out the grass plains in the countryside. Hardly any tall trees~
The check-in area.
Part 2 of my lunch was this dessert above. Lolz! "Dairy Queen" was just beside "Angkor Pub" and the girls already went gaga over the ice creams. This was my mocha almond fudge blizzard and it costed 2USD. U might be wondering why the blizzard was held upside down. If the ice cream falls out, we can get a free one. Lolz~~~ Anyway, the blizzard was yummy~
Departing Phnom Penh at 5.55p.m. Just as the plane was preparing to take off, there was a sudden brake! Ha! The pilot quickly explained that there was a break malfunction. (True or not who knows la~) I just need to be thankful that I landed in Changi in one piece. Lolz~
This dinner was nothing new to E.W. I thought she probably missed the food. Haha! E.W's curry vegetarian meal.
Took a pic of Aunt Jo's dinner, chicken with baked potatoes. The potato tasted great!
I am always the odd one out when I chose my meal. My braised beef with rice. It's nice okay~
