May 11, 2009 - We met the elephants at 7:30a.m. to ride them up to Angkor Thom temple. The ride was $15 per person but Bailey & Carson were only $7.50 each. Our elephant's name was Ji Jum (Happy).
A highlight at Angkor Thom temple is the HUGE statues of faces. The faces are at the Bayon area. This area has a million nooks & crannies that kids could get lost in. We brought our walkie-talkie's and the kids had a blast playing hide-n-seek there with them.
Notice in the photos all the hiding spots. Also, look at the face in the background of Carson and Bailey's photos. The faces are all smiling. King Jayavarman VII apparently had a sense of humor! Nice to know that they were happy 1,000 years ago. Angkor Thom is a Buddhist temple.
This photo is classic of Carson coughing into his arm...he had such a bad cough while we were in Cambodia and coughed into his arm the entire trip! As soon as we got back to Singapore his cough was fine.
Preah Pithu Temple
We visited this temple in the Angkor Thom area b/c it was known for all of its elephant statues...a lot of the heads are gone from the statues so it was hard to tell they were elephants but it was a fun temple for climbing on!
Luckily, our friend Peter who is 17 was Carson's "buddy" for the trip - to make sure he didn't fall in places like this...
Ta Prohm Temple
This temple is amazing b/c trees have grown over much of the temple with their roots gripped tightly to the stones. These trees are massive and make for great photo ops.
This spot where we're standing is the actual spot where Angelina Jolie picked a jasmine flower before falling into the earth in the movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
Last Temple for the day: The Great Ankgor Wat!
This is a Hindu temple that has been well maintained so it's pretty amazing. It's surrounded by a moat on all sides; built to keep out enemies 1,000's of years ago. It's the world's largest religious building.
You could spend years here studying the details on the walls and deciphering their meanings...I couldn't spend years studying it of course but SOMEONE could!
This is our last photo before leaving Angkor Wat temple. We walked quickly past all the vendors selling t-shirts and postcards. We never bought from the vendors at the temple b/c if you bought from one you'd be attacked by hundreds more...it was hard to say no to the small children selling post-cards but we were always polite and just talked to them instead of buying. Sammy was always getting annoyed with me for talking to them and telling them they were beautiful! We bought our souvenirs from the markets from ADULTS instead; as we didn't want to encourage small children to work.
The very tall section in the center is where there used to be a gold statue of the Hindu God Vishnu in it. Sammy had just learned all about Hinduism & Buddhism in her Social Studies class this year so she was able to see a lot of what she'd learned about. I'm glad she could appreciate it b/c when you're walking around dripping with sweat it's nice to have some "aha moments!" as Oprah used to say.
After a quick swim and some snacks we boarded this boat to go to...
The Floating Village!
This outing was $30 for my 3 kids and me and well worth it...it was like Waterworld; the Kevin Costner movie, except a blast from the past on water instead of a blast from the future!
School was in session as we drove past this floating school.
Everything was pretty much business as usual...swimming to get clean water; hanging out at your floating house, swimming to the small store on water; even the pigs were in a pig-pen built on the water! We all agreed that wasn't somewhere we'd want to live when the monsoon rain is beating down or lightning & thunder!
