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!

The Wild West of Siem Reap

Er, hullo bears and not-a-bears! We are off to Siem Reap in Cambodia. I heard it was sort of a wild-west type of town so got a cowboy hat... but it doesn't fit bear well!

 Actually, it's Mama's hat... but I thought I'd borrow it for a bit!

 We flew on Cambodia Angkor Air from Bangkok to Siem Reap. At first we were going to take a train and a bus but the humans eventually decided a plane was better.

That meant there was time for some afternoon exploring! And we found some beary yummy Belgian beer... Leffe Brown - yummmm!!

 This is one of the markets where they sell all sorts of vegetables and stuff.

And there was even an Apsara dance show going on - traditional Cambodian dance.

But the highlight of the day was this... Fish Massage & Pedicure. We had seen this in Bangkok but didn't do it... but here... the humans decided to do it.

The little fishies eat the dead skin off your feet and legs - it tickles like mad at first but then gets better. (Mama does still have all her toes under all those fishies!)

 Mama dared me to get it done to... uh-huh.... really...

I don't think so!! Those little fishies would eat all the fur off my feet and legs and then I'd look like a silly bear!