So I was off to Phnom Kulen.... in a Toyota Corolla... as all cars are in Cambodia... up a road that was only open one way in the morning then at 12:30 changed directions... up a steep muddy hill... not paved... actually terrifying. But anywho... Phnom Kulen is said to be the originating point of the Khmer civilization... which is why I wanted to go... Little did I know that it was really soooo much more. Every Sunday, Cambodian families gather together, and have picnics... with what little food they actually have... It was... well... incredible... I was one of the only people that wasn't khmer there... meaning the people that were there... weren't tourists... they're travelers... the people willing to go off the beaten track a ways....
My first view was of the waterfall...
Then I headed down the path... if you look close... those things that appear to be fairies are in fact a swarm of butterflies
So I get all the way down and wham... theres these rocks in the way from seeing the waterfalls.... so i of course see the youngins climbing on the rocks, and i decide.... what the hell, climb on up and got the better view... and earned the admiration of some youngins...
After the fall I wandered up a really really tall hill to see another reclining buddha... there is lots of money around the buddha that are donations... oh and just to prove how high in the air/in the middle of nowhere i really was... i took shots of the surrounding jungle.
This is the falls of a thousand lingas... Lingas are a square with a circle in the middle representative of male and female genitalia. Running water over the linga is considered sacred. I've acutally had a few pictures with them... But this is even cooler b/c in the first picture you can see a face, and there's scenes from stories... and the water from this is collected and used in religious and royal ceremonies.
We then went back to the falls... I crossed over the bridge and found some pretty awesome ruins...
More shots of the falls...
And then all the kids piled on the bridge... Seriously the whole time i got to hang out and have lunch with a family... it was a rare chance to really get into the culture...
The next place I went was Banteay Srei... This is the crown jewel of the Khmer civilization... while it is very small... it is incredibly beautiful. Every inch of the place is carved in intircate designs... but enough from me, I'll let you see for yourself.
This last picture here are individuals who have been affected by land mines that have formed a band playing traditional music.
So its around this point that i got back to town and got my atm card back etc. And then it started to rain... and stopped just in time for me to last minute decide to go catch the sunset back at the temple complexes on top of Bakheng.
Unfortunately it started off as being a bit of a wash out. So I just took mainly some view pictures... and generally got clips of what I thought was the sunset... Then they told us it was closed and we needed to leave... so i waited a while... then decided that since the steps were about 3 inches wide and came up past my knees, and were wet, i should start climbing down before it got too dark. And thats when the real sunset came....
Trust me... i really kicked myself for climbing down before seeing that part... and i was standing on my tippy toes near the edge of the path reaching through the trees to get these pics... but at the same time... i'm the only one of the group that got to see the sunset... soooo worthwhile... and i stopped kicking myself when i then had to wander down the rest of the hill in almost complete darkness...
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