The Temples of Angkor

Hello people! sorry for the delays, as always! too busy, you know! many things have happened since the last time I wrote. The most important is that my girls left me!!! I am alone now! but I am among friends so I am not scared! I am a brave girl! Let me start from the beginning...



The temples of Angkor seem so far away now... it was wonderful to see them though. You feel a little bit like Indiana Jones discovering ancient civilizations... they still are quite a mistery in some ways. I did not learn much about the history (lazy) but I intend to because they really amazed me. After many hundreds of years abandoned, then rediscovered and then abandoned again and nearly destroyed by the war, they are still standing, and very majestic. The first day we went on ou tuk tuk for sunrise. That makes it even more exciting: arriving there at night time, all still and dark, and little by little the light starts iluminating the stones... and there it was: Angkor Wat! so perfectly underlined by the sunlight. The red stones turned golden... beautiful! you have to be there to appreciate it fully! Eventhough there were many people sharing the moment it was still unique. And we were of the first ones to enter, so everything was silent, you could hear your own footsteps... a sacred place, in every corner an image of the Buddha... the dark and misterious corridors, the carvings in the walls intact.



I am not going to describe every single temple we visited, it would take me too long, there are too many! we only saw about 15 in two days, and many were similar but many were very special. The names escape my mind as well, although I have them all written down... you will excuse my vagueness. The ones that I found most exciting were the ones that had trees growing on them! they had become part of the strucure, sometimes even supporting it, sometimes changing its shape into bizarre forms... it was so cool to see the old stone turned green with moss, nature taking over... enormous trees that have been growing for long time! very powerful! I also had a religious experience, in one of the temples I made an offering to an inisible god, Visnu, that an old man was venerating (although there was no image, anymore, only the bats ruled the small tower!). Some incense sticks and some prayers in a strange language, he also read my fortune in a little scroll made of banana leave... unfortunately, his English was not that good, so all I understood was that it was good fortune! (ok, that is good enough for me!).



The downside of this complex, I have to mention it, is that it is full of children and people selling... as soon as you dismounted from your carriage (moto-tuk tuk), you could hear people shouting at you: "lady!, miss! cold drink! food!, T-shirt, books, ...you name it!" very persistant and very repetitive! and the children were the worst because they had such beautiful big eyes... and they asked you for your name, where are you from... and followed you till the entrance of the temple with the promise:"after you buy from me!" and they waited ther for you!!! "3 for one dollar " was their song, with monotonous voice... after it was:"ok, 4 for 1 dollar" and on and on forever! It was quite trying! they were very sweet but you just could not buy from all of them!!! one day I made the mistake to buy from one and I was suddenly surrounded by 10 angry faces all talking at the same time:" why you not buy from me?" even grabbing my arms... I did not know what to say, just smiled until they asked me:"why you don't say anything?" what could I say! I was overwhelmed!!



So after two days of temples and children we needed some rest... and we went to Bali!!!! But that is a different story, which I will tell you tomorrow... maybe.