Water Puppets

Well, we were bored. So why not go to a water puppet show?

The first time I saw this was 2.5 years ago in Hanoi. This was exactly the same show in every detail. The stage, for no apparent reason, is a tub of very dirty-looking water. The puppets are beautiful lacquered machines--they don't exactly compete with today's 3-D entertainment, but they must have been cutting-edge tech in their time. The show is introduced by a simple boy puppet chatting with the musicians in Vietnamese--not very reassuring to the foreigner. But the following scenes are generally written to show off a puppet that can swim or dance or squirt water.

Belly Blues

Sometimes you just have to spend $35 on dinner. We came to the Intercontinental Hotel for some painful money extraction. The question "was it worth it?" keeps popping up. A quick look at the spread makes it seem like it is.

My first plate held more food than I've seen in months--mashed potatoes, always a nostalgic treat; some salmon, rare in Vietnam; a really tasty pork rib; a tekamaki for sushi lightweights; what unfortunately turned out to be lamb, never easy on my stomach.

There's so much amazing crab in Vietnam. Don't know how long the ecology will last, but it is nice to not be in the same room as fake crab-sticks. Unfortunately the guts were really sour and spoiled the lump meat, but that's a pretty meaty claw.

Little spiny lobsters. A couple of these really makes the price worth-while.

The desserts really stole the show.

This was amazing, like something out of Willy Wonka. Very hard not to just stick my face into a never-ending chocolate fountain.

The selection was mind-boggling. Every morsel was a piece of art yet tasted spectacular. I tried to have one of everything. I rolled out of there like a stuffed goose and spent the next day bent over in agony, crouched forehead-against-floor. Worth it? Hard to tell.

Tomb Raider

Cambodia has temples like New York has mailboxes. They are pretty hard to keep track of, especially since the Khmer keep switching between Hinduism and Buddhism. Angkor Wat is the most famous and well built temple, so it is used as a sort of focal point. I don't even remember the name of this temple (feel free to google it), so I call it Tomb Raider like most tourists because it was a setting for the movie. It's pre Angkorian and pretty small, but has huge character thanks to the fig trees growing around it, sometimes pulling it apart and sometimes holding it together. Like other Buddhist temples, it was defaced by a late king who converted Cambodia back to Hinduism. He only ruled for 5 years, but long enough to carve out every Buddha on every temple and put a third eye of Shiva (not even a very pretty eye) on the large faces. The temple walls had plates like a Stegasaurus all along the top, thousands and thousands of them, with a little seated Buddha, now all gone. Still, I feel that only adds to the history of the place, and this is one of my favorite temples.

You can see the third eye carved in this temple entrance.

Ankgor Thom

Angkor Thom is often thought of as #2 to Angkor Wat for some reason. It came later and was built just next door but is actually an entire city with many religious sites. The king at the time was Buddhist, but was very religiously tolerant and left the Hindu Angkor Wat alone. Angkor Thom also has both Buddhist and Hindu religious themes. One of the best Hindu stories is depicted in the entrances and a relief--The Churning of the Sea of Milk, not shown here because--well, I'd been here before. Anyway, the king's tolerance was repaid by the afore-mentioned later Hindu king who went and defaced Buddhist icons all over the temples. Still, it's just enormous, and impossible to take in every site in one day, as I tried on two occasions. And you can ride an elephant through it, which is uncomfortable but pretty neat.

The locals call him "The Leper King," but actually his arms were seared during a battle with a huge venom-spitting cobra.

Don't know what this is, but we climbed the hell out of it.

The Elephant Pomade, or something.

A Garuda, one of my favorites.

Bayon temple is my favorite, though I'd be hard pressed to compare them all. It's well known as the one with many huge faces in 4 directions.
There's a lot of detail. You have to stop for a while until you can pick out the huge faces.


Most of the reliefs around Bayon temple are of Khmer, allied with the Chinese, against Cham invaders. The Cham invaded quite a lot, and at one point they took over for 4 years. Now, the Cham are reduced to small villages scattered around Cambodia and their old capital in central Vietnam, and for some reason converted to Islam.

This guy, with many umbrella carriers, is probably the king who built Angkor Thom.

Apsaras, virgin Cambodian dancers. A common theme in the temples and a common brand for anything Cambodian.

Khmer Budgies

Another good thing about having a guide is he will tell you all the usual places for great photos, like when two faces in profile are framed in a window.

This face is said to be the most beautiful because she's smiling the widest.

Ankgor Wat

Well, here we are. Definitely far from home. Angkor Wat is THE temple in Cambodia, the most well made and most famous. It is a Hindu temple, but many gods crossover into Buddhism and are still worshipped today. Here's Vishnu, much restored and in modern garb--one of the first things most people see past the moat.

A rare photo at a usually hectic entrance

.

The temple and a reservoir still used today.

One of many great things about Angkor Wat is the huge reliefs telling the epic battle in the Ramayana of demons vs. monkeys. The monkeys are obviously winning. I had to enhance the photos like crazy to see the reliefs, the rock is very flat. Here's my favorite, Garuda taking out 4 horsed riders at once and Hanuman beating up two lions.

Another wall of reliefs, new to me, showed various levels of heaven and hell. This guy had it the worst, only an adulterer. He's literally getting nailed.