Angkor Essentials - Raiding the tombs ....

If you're wondering if I'm on to day three of our Siem Reap trip after the last post ... errrhh...actually I just finished the early part of the morning *grins* Don't forget we had an early start so there is still more of day two to come so brace yourself k!

The next temple that we visited Ta Prohm is now famous thanks to Angelina Jolene and her movie Lara Croft - Tomb Raider that was filmed there. And our Mr Chenla was the translator for the producers (or somebody involved in the filming) and he was proud to show us the spots where the camera crew did the screening. and I will share those spots with you too. Will have to rewatch the movie to confirm the spots though *grins*

Ta Prohm is also known as the temple of Brahma the Ancestor. It was consecrated in 1186 by Jayavarman VII, who dedicated it to his mother, deified as Prajnaparamita, the mother of all the Buddhas and Mistress of the 'Perfection of Knowledge'.

To get to the temple, we had to walk about 350m along a path in the forest. What caught my attention was how the roots of the trees were strangling the temple. According to Mr Chenla, the first site where the camera crew had up their equipments was to get the view you see below (information to be confirmed after I have rewatched the movie!)

And there were also designated 'hot spots' (one example is below where you see the root system very clearly) where platforms built for tourists to take shots home. We were told that the boardwalk and clearing was a recent thing. The original state of the temple was such that 'explorers' had to climb over huge blocks of broken bits of the temple. Nowadays, it's much easier for us to explore the temple and I guess it takes a way part of the excitement of exploring an abandoned temple :o)

The photograph below shows the Kapok Tree invading the gallery porticoes. Pretty amazing and it must have taken a long time for the roots to grow to that extent. Don't know about you but looking at the photograph below gives me goosebumps.

There are still lots of areas that are hard to go through because of broken blocks of stones (as seen below). Am not sure if you can see from the photograph (to the right of the photo), there were holes in the walls and these was where they used to store things. Now, as tempting as it is, DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGERS INTO THE HOLES which was what we nearly did to see how deep they were. Reason being, there might be creepy crawlies like scorpions lurking in the holes!

Another 'hot spot' (photograph below - which by the way gives me goosebumps when I look at the photograph each time *shivers* dunno why) for tourists and you really need to push your way and insist that it's your turn to take a shot. But you will get people who insist on standing in front of you to take a shot. So irritating. And I can just imagine how worse it will be during the peak period. A lady had to beg us to let her take this shot without anyone and we relented and I took the opportunity to grab a shot too *grins*

Once the lady got her shot, we quickly jumped into position before anyone behind us could 'cut queue' *laughs* Ohhh, being tourists can be oh so tiring!!!

I reckon Ta Prohm would be absolutely perfect if we had the place to ourselves, or at least fewer people there so that we could really take in everything. It was difficult when hordes of people are around and they get SO LOUD *sighs* many a times we felt like screaming SHHHHHH!!

This (photograph below) is the second location according to Mr Chenla. He showed us exactly where the cameras were set up *grins* and this was the shot they took. For the filming, they actually closed the temple to the public. Hmmm, not very nice thing to do especially if you don't have time to return (like us!)

Me (photograph below) taking a break from all the walking and the people. The path to take was pretty much fixed so you gotta move with the flow and that irked me because it meant moving at the rush rush pace as everyone else. It's like click click click (photo-taking) and then move, then click click click and then move on. So any opportunity to take a break and just slow things down was a good thing.

Eventually we had to move along and join the crowd. Just gotta shut out the noise and admire the temple around ....

There was a carver there who was working on a piece of horn and for this piece, he was actually carving the Angkor Wat on that piece of flat horn. Can't see from the photograph but the carving looked real good. But it was work in progress so no chance of buying it home *grins*

I don't know if you can tell but I was kinda pissed off because an Asian lady (I will not mention from which country) just stood in front of me to have her photograph taken. Yeah, lots of rambling and ranting for this post but I still can recall how irritating it can be when in a crowd.

Alrighty, time for a break. We headed for lunch break close by to Angkor Wat, which was our next stop. Will blog about what we tried and liked in Cambodia in terms of their food a little later.