Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 66

We started day 3 at the Pre Rup temple. It was built in 961 by Kin Rajeindravarmen and was dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva. This was a state temple (unlike some of the other temples that were ancestor temples). The name means "turn the body" and comes from a common belief that the temple was used for funerals and during the funerals, the ashes of the body were rotated in different directions (turn the body) during the service. The temple is square and has 2 perimeter walls.

Obviously, the towers have been weathered with time, but they are still quite impressive. You can clearly see the inner perimeter wall in these pictures. In theory, where we were standing was the moat, which has long since dried up.

Once on the inside, we wandered through the temple towers, the side storage buildings, and the interior walls.

And then up the stairs to the upper terrace. Most Cambodians tend to be quite short, so I'm trying to figure out these stairs, which are really TALL for people who are only 4 feet tall :-)

Now from the top looking down, you can see the perimeter wall and some of the parts of the temple.

Here is one of the carvings, and in this case, you can clearly see how they would start with the bricks and then do a rough carving out of the actual brick. Then they overlay the carved brick with sandstone and plaster to get the finished carving.

Statues of Lions are everywhere, even though lions were never native animals in Southeast Asia. These statues of lions normally come in pairs and are gate guardians.

Here are two final pictures of this small structure, with Tom and our guide taking a closer look.

The temples at Mebon are close by and we went to East Mebon. It is a 10th century temple also built by King Rajendravarman. When built, it was on an artificial island in the middle of a reservoir, which is now dry. It is an ancestor temple, honoring the parents of the king, and dedicated to Shiva. It looks very much like Pre Rup and is in the same general style. The key difference here is the use of elephants. On the corners of the first and second tiers of the template are free-standing stone elephants, about 2 meters high each.

Next came the Neak Pean temple, which was different than all of the temples we had seen up to that point. After walking a bit down a path, we reached the temple. We couldn't get very close as they had it roped off. It is an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circle temple. You can see the square pool and then an small entrance to the next, circular pond with the temple in the middle. Around in the water, they have the ruins of these horse sculptures. They believe that Neak Pean represents a mythical lake in the Himalayas whose waters cure illnesses. This was originally designed as a "hospital" for King Jayavarman VII. It is based on the balance of the for parts of the world: specifically Water, Earth, Fire, and Wind. In each of the 4 directions from the central temple, there was the square pool. The ancients believed that going into these pools (based on what the illness was) would balance the elements in the bather and cure whatever disease they had.

This starts the entrance to Preah Khan temple, built in the 12th century by King Jayavarman VI. The temple remains fairly unrestored as of now and you can see in places where the jungle had basically grown around and over the temple itself. The path turns into the main stone causeway that takes you to the entrance gate. Along the sides were statues and, as you can see, the entrace gate is being restored now.

This is garuda, which is a mythical bird-like creature that exists both in Buddhist and Hindu mythology and the carving was on one of the outer walls. you can somewhat see the naga (serpent) that he his holding in both hands .. the snake is said to be the enemy of garuda. If you look above the garuda, you'll see some triangular-shaped niches. These USED to have carvings/sculptures of Buddha in them. However, during the reign of Jayavarman VIII there was an anti-Buddhist campaign, where many of the images from Buddhism were either removed (like these carvings) or carved/painted over to be something else.

As you come in, we came across this free-standing structure. He mentioned that this could have been a library or storehouse, but some think that this is a place where pilgrims could stay overnight when they were visiting the temple.

Now the front entrance gate. There are actually 3 doors or gates in the front of the temple: two on the sides and then one straight in the middle, with the one in the middle being taller than the others. The King and special individuals go through the middle while the "normal people" entered through the shorter/smaller doors.

To the left of the main door you can see the tree basically growing on the top of the temple.

As with many temples, they have the naga (cobra or serpent) on the sides. This one obviously is quite damaged.

Here can see a change in architecture a bit. See how the windows are "fake" windows? If you remember the other temples, you have windows with the carved up-and-down spirals. Here we have the spirals but they are not in an actual opening. You can also see some Hindu carvings right in the middle of the picture. Now look above the fake windows .. more of these Buddha carvings from the Buddhist timeframe that were then removed/chiseled off. You can also see the tree growing on the top. This is supposedly the Hall of Dancers, that would have had apsara dancer images on the walls.

Here is another interesting building: a 2-story building, which is somewhat unique. This is just North of the Hall of Dancers. This is the only surviving example of a 2-story building in the temples around Siem Reap. The thought is that this was a granary.

More carvings. The second one shows the apsara dancers, which you can easily recognize from their headdress. Another few pictures where you can see the carvings.

Here is another garuda standing on top of, and holding, Nagas.

Some general pictures...

Another nice sandstone sculpture

So Here I'll talk about the lingam, which you see everywhere, especially in every single temple. The lingam is a representation of Shiva and is most of the time shown with the yoni, which represents Shakti. Put rather basically, the way it was explained is that the lingam and yoni represents the male (lingam) and female (yoni) sex organs and when you see them, you can kinda visualize it. Here you can envision the square top of the pedestal as Yoni and the lingam being the male sex organ in the middle.

Another interesting picture .. here you can see that what is inside of the niche is definately NOT a Buddha. During the anti-buddhist timeframe, they removed the Buddha's from these niches (the shape of the niche gives it away as having a Buddha in the past) and a hermit has be put into them.

And then more nice building and the exit out the back. Here youc an also see the 2 guardian lions up front, and then if you look behind the lions, you can see the cobra-shaped sculptures of the Nagas.

Lunch was this quaint little place called the Butterfly Home, and we had the Menu Tradition. We sat up on the 2nd story in what looked like a traditional Khmer "dragon" house, overlooking the garden and then a water reservoir across the street.

It started with the Butterfly salad, which had banana flower hearts and green papaya.

Second course was Kari chicken, which is mixed chicken and veggies with a side of rice.

Then a common dish, Amok fish. The "amok" refers to the process of steam cooking a curry in banana leaves and is a "culinary tradition" in Cambodia.

Then an assortment of Khmer desserts.

Angkor Thom, Bayon, Baphuon, etc.

Angkor Thom means "Great City" and was the last and most enduring capital of the Khmer empire. Built by King Jayavarman VII in the last 12th century, it has several temples. We started at Bayon, and here you can see another shift in architectural style with the introduction of face-towers. You can see the faces here in the photos although they look much better in 3D! The towers have these faces on each of the 4 sides.

The entrance of the gates have a causeway with nagas and statues.

This is also another jungle temple, and this was the one that was used in filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, where they visit Angkor Thom during to recover the first piece of the Triangle of Light. This is a good picture of the face and then the large tree roots in front.

These faces continue through the main temple .. some general pictures of the temple.

There are 3 levels to Bayon. On the first level, there are lots of intricate bas-relief galleries showing stories of daily life and rituals of the Khmer people.

This was kinda cool .. .the way the doors all line up make it almost look like looking into a mirror.

Next was Baphuon, which is huge! Built in the mid 11th century, it is a 3-tiered temple that was the state typele of Udayadityavarman II and dedicated (again) to Shiva. And yes, we climbed to the top! Here you can get an idea of how steep it was with Tom going up before me.

That night, we had a buffet dinner along with a Apsara dance show. An Apsara is a female spirit of the clouds and water in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. You've seen carvings of the apsaras throughout the temples. Within Siem Reap, there are many Apsara dance shows in the evening (normally paired with a buffet dinner). These dancers use movements and gestures to convey meaning and tell a story. These gestures are often vague and abstract while some may be easily understood. Dancers do not sing or generally speak except for some dance dramas where there are brief instances of speech by the dancers. The way in which they are presented, the position of the arm, and the position of the hand relative to the arm can also affect their meaning. Gestures are performed in different manners depending on the character type.

So our dinner was at the Koulen restaurant, and their stage was decorated with the faces of Bayon. Before the dancing started, we had traditional Khmer music played on some fairly interesting instruments.

Then the dances. Some pictures are better than others (it was dark and they were moving around alot). There were several different dances, most with both men and women, and they all are meant to tell a story.




Continue to Day 3 for more Temples in Siem Reap