Posts of the trip to Cambodia will become less frequent over the next couple of weeks as I travel. To help you pass the time, here are a couple of puzzles.
And here’s a second one:
Cambodia – Ta Prohm, the puzzle
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Category Archives: Southeast Asia
Cambodia – Ta Prohm
You recognize the picture, right? Or something like it?
The jungle creeps across the ruins, engulfing them in serpentine tree roots. There is a sense of slow-motion menace here, of inevitable decay.
It’s beautiful.
Even the entrance to the temple compound promises decay and grandeur on a romantic scale.
Construction of Ta Prohm, originally named Raja Vihara, was begun in 1186 AD and lasted for forty years. After the fall of the Khmer Empire in the fifteenth century, the temple was abandoned and fell into jungle-engulfed ruins.
But the romance of Ta Prohm is now somewhat disappearing. The place is being fixed up and made safer for its two or three million annual tourist visitors. It is a monument worth protecting, both from the trees and from the tourists, but I do hope that the moody atmosphere is not destroyed in the process.
Meanwhile, the army of trees continues its quiet, merciless invasion.
Cambodia – Rural life in Angkor
Except for the town of Siem Reap, the Angkor region is generally rural, especially in the archaeological park near the wats. The geography is nearly flat, not far from the Siem Reap River (perhaps even in its floodplain), a good place for farming. Rice farming in particular.
But not just rice. There are also, for example, cashew trees.
We were not here during the tourist season, and although there were a lot more tourists than in Myanmar, the roads through the archaelogical park were not busy.
A few small shops offered their wares.
Home from school, children offered friendly greetings.
Houses were basically rectangular and built on stilts to keep them dry during the rainy season. This season had just begun when we were there, and so people were still able to use the “extra” room beneath the house, keeping cool in its shade.
There were also a few tourist-oriented shops along the road. Given the region’s increasing economic reliance on tourism (and the fact that vendors are not allowed inside the archaeological sites), I was surprised not to see more. And the few there were had a certain homey attractiveness.
Cambodia – Banteay Srei
Banteay Srei, about fifteen miles northeast of the main Angkor Wat and Angkor Tom complexes, is small compared to those better-known temples. Small but really sweet. And perhaps this is why it came to be called “Banteay Srei,” which means “Ladies’ Citadel.” Some say this is because the structures, doorways, and so on, are small, as if they were built for women. Others say the name came from the fact that the stone was so delicately carved and in such detail that only a woman could have done it. (Ladies, watch out for those second sort of men…)
Banteay Srei was built in 967AD and used into the fifteenth century. Its original name (in Sanskrit) was (er, sounds like…) Shiri Tre Bhuvan Mahes Vara, which means “Sacred Home of the Great Lord of the World.” The Great Lord in question is Shiva.
The temple later fell into disuse and was then abandoned and lost, to be rediscovered by the French but not until 1914.
The temple was built mostly of red sandstone, which is amenable to detailed carving and strong enough to endure a long time. And indeed the carvings are still after all these centuries so breathtaking that I’ve had a hard time narrowing down the photos to include here.
Remember, these carvings are well over a thousand years old!
Here’s a detail of the above pediment.
Welcome to Cambodia
Dear friends and followers,
After something like six days of travel and six weeks of blogging, we now leave Myanmar for the wonders of Cambodia. There will be more ruins, many of them absolutely stunning, more friendly people, more (yes!) silk weaving, and more great food.
The first several posts will cover the area in and near Angkor Wat. Here, for your reference is a map from the Wikimedia Commons. The first place Dan and I visited is the ancient temple of Banteay Srei, which is not actually on this map, but instead is about fifteen miles northeast beyond Ta Som, off the top righthand corner. The rest of the places will be on the map.
Inle Lake – The Five-Day Market, Part 2
The wholesale part of the market isn’t as picturesque as the retail part, but it’s just as busy. And interesting.
It’s not just food that’s for sale, but also other items that sometimes people need in bulk. Large baskets, for example, and woven bamboo mats.
In case you’re wondering why people need so many of these things, well, most of the houses have walls made of the woven bamboo mats. And sitting platforms, indoors and out. And as for the baskets…
Gotta have something to bring all that ginger root home in. And also the tomatoes.
Not everything ends up in baskets, though. Large sacks are also popular. Here, a man is filling a sack with green beans. It’s really good that he doesn’t pick them out like I do, examining each one individually.
In fact, large sacks are more common than baskets in the wholesale market.
In the wholesale market, merchandise is sold by weight, and the scale can be moved from village to village just like the market.
One of the more interesting aspects of the five-day market is the variety of different tribal people who buy and sell goods there. And just people-watching in general.
After the market, we caught a plane at Heho airport and flew to Yangon. I’ve already posted about Yangon on this blog. That same afternoon, we flew from Yangon to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We bid farewell to Myanmar with some regret. We miss it.
Inle Lake – The Five-Day Market
Markets in Europe in the Middle Ages may not have been much different from this. Oh, they wouldn’t have had trucks, of course. Or tomatoes, for that matter. But I imagine the look and feel would have been much the same.
Let’s start with the retail market. Later, we’ll see the wholesale market, too.
Remember those tomatoes they were unloading from the boats? Here they come to market.
And indeed, you can find tomatoes at this market. Along with many other kinds of very fresh fruits and vegetables.
Also, there were lovely flowers.
As you might expect of a market on Inle Lake, many vendors sold seafood, both dried and fresh; and also hearty fish soups and soup ingredients in addition to fish.
And here are some of the other things they sold.
Tomatoes and corn–just like the farmers markets here in New England!
Or then again, maybe not quite like the farmers markets in New England.
Yes, I do think that this last one is skewered grilled eels. Or maybe snakes. Bon appetit!
Finally, here’s a panorama of the market that Dan shot. It’s a big file (3mb). Click here if you’d like to view it; it should load in a new window or tab. It’s pretty cool.
Inle Lake – Going to the Five-Day Market
Market day! We arrived at Inle Lake too late in the morning to make the five-day market in Nyaung Shwe, but this morning we had to get up very early (5am, as I recollect) to go to the five-day market in Heho.
The five-day market serves not just the residents of all the villages in and around Inle Lake, but also the tribal people living in the hills all around. Serving this large geographic area with this (relatively) small and diverse population, the market has developed a pattern of moving from place to place on a five-day rotating schedule. Hence the name.
On each fifth day, the market is held in more than one village or town at diverse locations around the lake. The market schedule is further complicated by the fact that no markets are held on the days of the full or new moon. (This at first seemed like a charming superstition, until we recollected that in some states in the US, stores have to stay closed on Sundays. And isn’t that just the same thing?)
Even so, many people have to come long distances. Retailers in these remote sites buy wholesale at the nearest market to them so that they can resell to the people in their area until the market comes around again five days later. People living closer just buy for themselves until the market comes around to some place close enough to go again. Thus, the market offers a wholesale as well as a retail section.
Dan says this is the best market of them all.
This could be true. Certainly it was fun to photograph, and certainly it’s been hard to winnow down our collective hundred-plus photos to a reasonable number to share. So today we’re just going to look at what it’s like to go to the market. Tomorrow, we’ll get there and look around.
Going to the market from our water-bound hotel is a two-stage process: by water to Nyaung Shwe (setting out shortly after sunrise), and from there by land to Heho.
At that early hour, the lake (and then the canal that connects to Nyaung Shwe) bore considerable traffic of market-goers, mostly vendors with goods to sell.
Once we reached the dock, we watched the boats being unloaded as we waited for our car.
Do you see the two men carrying the basket of tomatoes on a pole?
When the car arrived, we set out by land.
Well, will you look at that! Between people and goods, they’ve managed to fit quite a load onto that truck!
As you can imagine, they’re not going too fast. We pass them and reach Heho. Somehow, this reminds me of the idea of a town in the Wild West. The turnoff to the market is just ahead.
Whoa, here comes that truck again!
And there it goes. There is a place where all the trucks can park. This one is probably headed over there.
As for us pedestrians, there’s a whole informal little market just on the way to the regular market.
Tomorrow, we’ll visit the main market.
Inle Lake – a brief sojourn with nature
It’s called the Inle Resort Hotel, and it seems to want to be an eco-lodge of sorts. It’s very tastefully done and beautifully sited at the edge of the lake among the natural habitat. We like this hotel best, perhaps, of all those we stayed at. We liked it so much that it’s the only one we photographed.
The approach to the hotel is beautiful and tranquil–by water, of course, with a long, curved, elegant “driveway.” It puts the guest into a certain relaxed and appreciative mood even before arriving.
The lobby, open to the air, has lovely views as well. Like so many places in Myanmar, it is built mostly of teak, and the wood is beautiful.
Our room, at the farthest back corner of the hotel compound, continues the simplicity of structure and decor combined with the richness of materials and environment. The mosquito netting around the bed is mostly a decoration. There is air conditioning and there are screens and doors and windows that shut tightly. And even when we sat outside on the deck to enjoy our quiet and peaceful view, there were not any mosquitos.
After settling in, we walked around the hotel grounds and enjoyed the end-of-day panorama.
Inle Lake – Scenery
It was the end of a long day on the lake for Dan and me; and for you, dear readers, it’s been two weeks of reading and seeing photos of various attractions on Inle Lake. It’s time to head back to the hotel for an evening of relaxation, because we have to get up early tomorrow morning in order to get to the five-day market on time. But we’ve come a long way south down the lake, and as our boat heads back, the wind srops; the sun comes out; and the scenery turns from lovely to drop-dead gorgeous.
But first, a look at a few of the one-off structures we noted throughout the day, places of no particular touristic interest but which seemed unique (or typical) of the lake scenery as a whole. These are the man-made structures in their watery environment.
This attractive structure, built in an isolated location in the middle of the lake, is (we were told) a government-run guest house. Whyever they might need one of those here… Make of it what you will.
Here are a couple of rural scenes.
And a couple of pagodas glimpsed in passing from the water.
But it was the landscape of lake and mountain and sky that was the most enchanting of all, both earlier in the day…
and late in the afternoon as the wind died down.
