Farewell to Siem Reap

Yesterday I rode about 20 km in a farewell bicycle loop past some of the temples I had already visited and some new ones that I hadn't. A lot of the children selling things at temples like to impress with their knowledge of U.S. state capitals. I had a friendly little girl tell me a long series of correct state capitals before saying that the capital of Massachusetts is Boston. A forgiveable mistake -- the answer is Springfield, which I told her. She seemed a little disappointed.

Ta Keo was a tall temple in the shape of a pyramid maybe six to seven stories high. This was the most unadorned of the temples I visited with no carvings and not much in the way of other buildings besides the central pyramid. The climb up to the top was challenging, and the view of the whole structure was great from the top. It made me think of the Mayan pyramids, although I've never actually visited those monuments.

Ta Prohm is the temples where some recent movies have been filmed, and visiting the temple in person demonstrated why this is such a popular shoot site. Not much has been done to stop nature from overtaking the temple, so it looks like a long-ago palace that everyone forgot about until a couple of days ago. This isn't true, because restoration efforts are taking place, but only where the decay in the building has rendered the path to dangerous for people to walk through. I'll remember this temple for all the sorts of trees I saw whose gigantic roots had grown out of the temple stones. No trees have seemed more alive and capable of movement that these trees, whose roots had coiled themselves around the stones like huge snakes.

Today I took an eight-hour scenic boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang, passing through Tonle Sap, the giant lake in a north-central location in Cambodia that I am guessing is fed by the Mekong River. The lake was peaceful and mostly empty of other boats, with only some kind of vegetation floating along the water. The same sort of vegetation can be seen in the Chao Praya in Bangkok, but I forget the name of the plant. The boat got a little hot in the afternoon, but I enjoy traveling by boat because I can actually read during the trip, something that I can't do on a bumpy bus ride.

I reached Battambang at 4 in the afternoon, had a quick meal at the market, and walked along the river to check out some of the old French architecture. There's a lazy feel to this town that I like so farm, and it's seemingly empty of foreigners after the hordes at Siem Reap.