Phnom Penh

We are in Phnom Penh - capital of Cambodia! Our guesthouse is beary nice with a wonderful little courtyard that is moderately cool.

Phnom Penh sits on the banks of the Tonle Sap River where it meets the Mekong River - that is a lot of water!

Look... the Cambodian flag has a picture of Angkor Wat on it! I've been there...

There are lots of boats on the river and rumour has it that I might get to go for a boat ride while we are here.

One strange thing (amongst many) in Phnom Penh is that every evening, people gather in parks and along Sisowath Quay to do aerobic exercises. One person leads it and has a big stereo system with massive speakers. And people just gather and do exercise together...

Another thing I've noticed in Cambodia is that every house has a little shrine like the one below. They are called Spirit Houses...

We also went to the Royal Palace... part of which was closed because that's where the Royals live. But we did see the Silver Pagoda.

It was a beary beautiful complex with lots of gold... (but no chocolate!)

These are lotus flowers!! They look like lily pads to me... but apparently are not lily pad flowers.

Some of the buildings were so massive... can you even see me in there?

This guy looks beary angry and has a big sword...

Oh Elephants!! Three of them at once... that's pretty cool.

And gold elephants too!

Hey!!! I got to ride an elephant!!! Yay!!!

Oh... and this is a gecko... they are everywhere... He's not blending into the wall too well.

These are more elaborate lotus flowers - they are super pretty.

Whew... all of those adventures tire a little bear out. We were here for three days, so on one afternoon I convinced everyone (including myself) to chill out...

At a pool at a nearby hotel!!

And... I did get to go on a boat ride!! That was cool...

That's what our boat looked like. One thing I noticed... not a lot of life jackets on board... especially little bear sized ones!

It was a sunset cruise and we even got to see a bit of a sunset in amongst all of the clouds.

Oh... and Ben will like this (sorry for the blurry photos). Can you recognize it??

On our last day we went to visit The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was sad.

Temple Bear - On the Move

Hullo bears & not-a-bears! I have been having a tonne of adventures in Siem Reap but haven't been able to weasel any wifi-time out of Mama! Hmmph... the humans work on their own blog and mine has to wait and wait and wait!

Anyhow... This was our tuk-tuk driver - and we were off to Angkor Thom on this day, which is just north of Angkor Wat.

Angkor Thom is renowned for a temple called Bayon, which has 216 faces carved into it. Can you see one in the picture below?

There are 54 pillars and each has 4 faces on it...

Some of them are a bit broken...

But others are pretty good. I look pretty tiny compared to these monoliths!

There were all sorts of cool windows and doors and you could see faces through them. It looks like the face in the background is whispering something into my ear.... but it's all Cambodian to me!

You really end up feeling like someone's always watching you... Hmmm... I think there's a song that goes like that... is it Sting??

And another one!

This place also had some cool colonnades (cool as in interesting and cool is an out of the sun!).

Oh look... it's an elephant!!!! Oooohhh... those animals are massive! I clammered and yammered but we didn't get to ride any elephants here... phooie!

Then it was off to another temple called Banteay Srei which was a beary long tuk-tuk ride away. But once we got there we saw something interesting... this grass sort of looks like wheat but it's really rice! We are just getting into the tail-end of the dry season here, so the wet season will start soon - and that will mean more rie fields.

Banteay Srei is known as the Citadel of Women because the stone carvings are so detailed and intricate that only women could have carved them... or so the legend goes.

There were strange monkey/human figures here... most missing their right arms.

See the detailed carving?? Amazing!!

It was super hot here too... but so interesting that I didn't mind the heat so much.

Although... the water buffalo were hot too and waded into a pond to cool off.

And then... another little temple called Ta Som. It ended up being one of my favourites. It as small and not overrun by tourists and had some cool trees climbing over the walls.

And doors within doors within doors within doors.

See!!! Isn't that amazing??? I love those trees...

Parts of the temple are a little decrepit.

But that just means I can play at Indiana Bear!

Ta-dah... I wonder if they stashed honey in their temples like the Egyptians did???

Bye-bye temples... next stop Phnom Penh!

Indiana Bear - Temple Explorer - Part 1

Hullo bears and not-a-bears! We have had a busy few days. I am a beary hot little bear!

First - we spent a day exploring temples. And then a second day exploring temples. These are not like the temples in Bangkok though - these are more or less ruined temples. They were abandoned around the year 1400 AD and only "rediscovered" in the mid-1800s. They were all covered and eaten up by the jungle, but now most of them have been cleared and put back together again.

The first place we went was Angkor Wat. Apparently it is the largest religious site on earth and you can see it from space!

It was beary large and a long walk.

 It was built by a king who thought he was a god. It needed 300,000 people to build it! They floated the big stones down the river on rafts (when they could) or dragged them through the jungle by elephant. It took 37 years to build. And once it was done, the king only used it as a holiday place twice a year!!!

 It was beary cool with lots of nooks and crannies and beautiful carvings on the walls.

 You could almost get lost in there.. except there are too many tourists for that to happen!

Some people climbed up to the main temple. They had to be dressed correctly - no tank-tops or short-shorts - luckily I made the cut!

It was pretty cool. You'd never know it but there were hordes of tourists all around. Some of them even wanted to take pictures of me!

 Whew... so that was Angkor Wat. Then...

It was off to Ta Prohm - it is near Angkor Wat and is a temple where they have left some of the jungle trees in place. It was my favourite!

 It was much cooler because of the trees and things just looked a little more Indiana Jones-ish.

 The tree roots have done a number on the place though. They get in between the stones and then whole walls fall over.

I think this hole in the tree is a secret entrance to the temple!

See some of the carvings?? They were pretty neat. Apparently most of the temples were painted red back in the olden days using henna. You can still see a bit of the red next to me.

 There's a big old tree sitting on a wall.

Isn't this cool?? You could play hide-and-seek in here for hours and never run out of hiding spots!!

This was a super cool tree...

Whew... it was beary hot out - +36 Celsius but it felt like +47. That is almost enough to make a little bear sweat!

See!!! Super hot - I did sweat!