Riding Elephants, Banterey Sri, Night Market

Today, we rode elephants around the Bayon Temple. Honestly it was hilarious. I was riding with my friend and roommate Itsumi. We are both really shorties, and the elephant was making us move all over the place. Itsumi almost lost her glasses. The photos are so crooked. The view was beautiful though, just not the photos. The poor elephant rider/man must have thought he had crazy people on his sweet elephant.

Afterward, we went to Kbal Spean. It was a 45 min hike uphill, where we hiked to a riverbed. Not only was the hike rewarding, but it was fun to see all of us hike together. It was just good downtime for everybody.  The riverbed had carvings of Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Also there were carvings of Lakshmi and of Vishnu lying back with nagara (snake) around him. Back in the day, hermits from Angkor City would come to this river for meditation. They would carve beautiful sculptures into the river. They even dammed the river to get to the river rockbed. However, in the 1970 and 80's, Khmer Rouge ran to these mountains to avoid the Vietnamese and others. During that time, they destroyed many of the scupltures there. You can even see scupltures without heads or effaced heads because of Khmer Rouge's attempts on removing them.

This place that was once a sanctuary to some of the most holiest and peaceful men on this planet, was then inhabited by men that caused destruction and pain onto hundreds of thousands of people. Our guide even showed us a cave that was home to first the hermits and then to the Khmer Rouge leaders. Strange right?

Anyway, at lunch I had the Lak lok. Super yummy! Then we went to Bantarey Sri, which is a temple dedicated to Shiva. It was even older than Angkor Wat. It wasn't built from sandstone, but honestly it had some of the most intricate carvings. Due to the use of a different stone, Bantarey Sri has really survived the test of time. It was destroyed by the Siamese in the 14th century, and re-discovered in 1961. It truly is beautiful. It is dedicated to Hindu's trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva). But mainly it is dedicated to Shiva. There are inscriptions and carvings telling of some of Shiva's stories about the water buffalo and magic pointing finger.

Now, I'm back at the hotel and heading over to the Night Market and food tonight! I'm hoping to get a better deal on paintings and dresses. I want to be able to bring some good souvenirs to my family and friends. I kind of got ripped off today. :( Lesson learned that's for sure!