Day Two at the Temples of Angkor

We decide to tuk tuk again today because we want to get to Banteay Srei the “Citadel of Women” at the end of the day. This furthest temple is 40 km away from Siem Reap and it’s blistering hot outside. It is famous for the intricacy of its artwork which is the most well preserved of all the temples. It is the masterpiece of Khmer art.

At the first temple I find out that my camera is broken! Luckily Nick is here with two cameras. He generously gives me his smaller one for the rest of my trip. He’s saves the blog! The rest of the blog pictures are taken by me with his Canon G10.
Temple pictures.

For a break we sit down at one of the vendors and of course are instantly surrounded by children. One child tries to sell me bracelets. I’ve already bought 15! So I say no emphatically. Then she tries to work her charm on Nick who always looks nicer than I do. She says to him “buy for your girlfriend” and looks and indicates me. He says “I don’t have a girlfriend”. Then she responds immediately “I tell you why you have no girlfriend, because you no buy gift.” Nick and I burst out laughing. She’s smart one. Nick ends up buying a flute and temple trinket. She chose the right mark.

We reach Banteay Srei at the end of the day.

The guard says that for a bribe of $1 USD we can get inside the security ropes and take look at the carvings close up, but we can't touch them. Sold!

On the way back, we take a scenic route through some small farming towns. As we stop to take a picture of the oxen cooling off in their wallows, a microscopic child, no more than two years old comes out of no where to try to sell us bracelets. She can barely even talk yet. I am thunderstruck.

We also see this girl riding her bike with this little baby.

The tuk tuk ride back from Banteay Srei is very refreshing because of the breeze. I enjoy the countryside view as Nick enjoys a coconut. It land is nice, but not as beautiful as Laos because of the lack of mountains and lush vegetation.

That evening, while looking for a place to eat, I bump into those two Portuguese guys that Ramsey So and I shared a bus with in Laos. I see both of them drinking form a large carton of pineapple juice. That’s strange until I remembered that they were afraid to eat the fresh fruit in SE Asia. Everything makes more sense once one of the guys says he’s suffering from food poisoning from a rambutan fruit shake he had worked up the courage to try. He doesn’t want to take any more chances with the food here.

Tomorrow we will temple by bike. Yay!