Today, we woke up pretty early and hoped back on the bus to Siem Reap. It was such a great place, I was a bit sad to leave. From what we saw of PP when we landed, it was just another large city in Asia.
So to fully understand the torture of this bus ride, when we got back to Singapore (where I am typing now), we looked up the weather. The WHOLE entire week it was 35C (95F). It was SOOO hot. The bus ride was the worst thing in the world. We transferred from our hotel to a bus which took us about 10 minutes to another station. It was nice, there was no whiny Cambodian music videos at full blast and the AC was nice. Then we got onto a new bus. It was completely full, and the front/side doors didn't close. There was no AC. For 6 hours in the middle of the afternoon. Literally, we sat in a pile of sweat trying not to touch one another, it was so miserable. We stopped mid ride for food, and it was much cooler (by this, I mean like 95 instead of 100) outside, so that was nice. Once we got within an our of PP, the main highway was still under construction. SO the non packed roads brought loads of dust circulating inside the bus. Everyone had their shirts over their mouths, coughing and everything in sight had a thick layer of red dust over it. IT was terrible.
There really is very limited transportation in Cambodia. The main transportation is by these buses, which are not government run but randomly ran by companies. There is no train system or no government bus system. Another very common was is to pay to ride in the back of someones truck.
Our new hostel was pretty nice. IT was only 5 months old so everything was clean. IT was what I would consider a party hostel. Lots of drinking, loud music, weed, but they served good food and there was limited AC, so we had SOME comfort. The city itself smelled. It was very gross. It looked like all the other big cities in Asia, except there wasn't the "nice and clean" part within the city limits. It smelled either like weed, gas, or trash. There were tons of people, but despite everything w read online, I didn't feel like I was going to get mugged at any minute, even though we were warned by locals all the time to "mind your things" when inside the markets. We met these two Canadian girls who were backpacking for 7 weeks in SE Asia and decided to join up with them the following day for the tour.
We got into an interesting conversation about skin. One thing that has happened to me at almost every trip is that my face breaks out. I always brushed it off, maybe its because I use my travel stuff which is different, or I"m busy and sweat alot. But one of the girls said that's not relay why, its because of the pollution. It made so much sense. The pollution in the cities (minus Singapore, of course, because eco green is their life even though they don't always practice what they preach) is terrible here. It's quite ironic, in the US, we are led to believe by the media and some other countries that we are the worst polluters because we drive big trucks and hummers. They obviously have never visited the streets of Bangkok or Cambodia. The motorcycles here jet out large plumed of black smoke and there is not one inch of street that isn't covered in something gross. In the morning the smell is worse, as it rains sometimes at night and the smell gets to sit in the water and become grosser. I actually saw and trash dump IN The city in PP while we were riding around.
Two things I forgot to mention that day before that Lucy told me. In their stable, there was a world map. They had the idea to have guests tack their home countries to see how many people visited the stables. IT was just an ordinary map, but obviously not an American printed map, since the US was on the right side instead of the left side like we see it at home. She told us that her workers, which are locals and orphans they hire, had no idea what it was. They had never seen "the sea" or a map, never the less a WORLD map. She had to explain to them what the other colors meant. Could you imagine seeing a world map for the first time? Another thing we talked about, was the Cambodian music videos. The women would stand and sway on their feet and twist their lands at their hips. It was like Hawaiian dance, with the hand motions, but no hip movements and their hands were stuck to their sides. Lucy said that they bound their hands to make them very flexible (think bound feet of the ancient Chinese) because very flexible hands was considered a beauty thing in Cambodia. Many of the women could bend their fingers back to their arms, it was a common thing. Who knew?
It was a nice easy day :)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Day 4: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Today started early for Kara and I, we went to this place called Happy Horse Ranch and rode Cambodian ponies around the country side. The place is run by an old embassy working from Phnom Penh who was rescued by the US during the civil war against the Khmer Rouge and lived in CA with his family for 30 years. Lucy, this gal from New Zealand, rode with us at 530 this morning, since its just so hot during the day. We did a 3..5 hour ride around the small village they had their ranch in and around lots of farm lands. It was so nice, because it was so early we got to see everyone starting their day. Lots of people were bathing (pots of water and scoops) and little kids were getting ready for school. Our guide the other day said that the little kids are all taught to say hi and bye to tourists to be polite, and ALL of the small kids ran to the road and waved to say hi, it was so cute! The animals were all waking up and wandering around. The calf's were all scared and interested at the horses and the dogs liked to follow.
We walked n between fields of rice. There were some farm squares that were all water for fish farming and we saw duck farmers. There were tons of water buffalo everywhere too! Lucy has been living here on and off for 4 years (she traveled here on vacation and fell in love with the ranch so she stayed!) and showed us the huge baby buffalo. The horses are pretty scare of them and we could trot or canter by, since she said the buffalo will chance the horses. WE talked alot of the time, she told me about the weird things shes seen during tours, like a guy electric shock fishing (illegal). My horse was quite feisty, randomly kicking into a run or doing small bucks. Once while we were walking through deep irrigation water, he decided to stop and sit down in the water! I leaped off so I didn't get smashed and the horse got up, just wanting a dip in the water., IT was quite funny and my camera survived, even though I was soaked in muddy water. It was defiantly one of the most fun days we've had :) We saw homemade cricket catchers with sheets and bright lights. We had a great time and got lots of photos!
We came back and napped. We got up at 430 the last couple days and were so tired. We got a hold of a map and wandered around the city, which basically was the restaurant/markets we've been going to the whole time. We tried to exchange money at a place that claimed to. She didn't really know what my Indonesian Ruphiah were and she undercharged Kara's Singapore exchange to USD by about $40. When we laughed and said no thanks, she said okay then how much, like she was trying to barter the exchange. Ya right, we left. We went back to the market this evening to look at some more things. We fund a T-shirt shop ran by this guy who made his own designs and made shirts fro his designs and his brothers artwork. They were very nice, as they werent' screaming tourist shirt, so we bought ones. Looked at the gemstones some more, but nothing was looking good. We're guna save the rest of our money for Phnom Penh, which has this famous place called Russian Market, so who knows, maybe we'll find something cool :)
Getting the mega exciting bus ride back to PP tomorrow. Yay. Not.
We walked n between fields of rice. There were some farm squares that were all water for fish farming and we saw duck farmers. There were tons of water buffalo everywhere too! Lucy has been living here on and off for 4 years (she traveled here on vacation and fell in love with the ranch so she stayed!) and showed us the huge baby buffalo. The horses are pretty scare of them and we could trot or canter by, since she said the buffalo will chance the horses. WE talked alot of the time, she told me about the weird things shes seen during tours, like a guy electric shock fishing (illegal). My horse was quite feisty, randomly kicking into a run or doing small bucks. Once while we were walking through deep irrigation water, he decided to stop and sit down in the water! I leaped off so I didn't get smashed and the horse got up, just wanting a dip in the water., IT was quite funny and my camera survived, even though I was soaked in muddy water. It was defiantly one of the most fun days we've had :) We saw homemade cricket catchers with sheets and bright lights. We had a great time and got lots of photos!
We came back and napped. We got up at 430 the last couple days and were so tired. We got a hold of a map and wandered around the city, which basically was the restaurant/markets we've been going to the whole time. We tried to exchange money at a place that claimed to. She didn't really know what my Indonesian Ruphiah were and she undercharged Kara's Singapore exchange to USD by about $40. When we laughed and said no thanks, she said okay then how much, like she was trying to barter the exchange. Ya right, we left. We went back to the market this evening to look at some more things. We fund a T-shirt shop ran by this guy who made his own designs and made shirts fro his designs and his brothers artwork. They were very nice, as they werent' screaming tourist shirt, so we bought ones. Looked at the gemstones some more, but nothing was looking good. We're guna save the rest of our money for Phnom Penh, which has this famous place called Russian Market, so who knows, maybe we'll find something cool :)
Getting the mega exciting bus ride back to PP tomorrow. Yay. Not.
Day 3: Angkor, Cambodia
I will try as hard as I Can to keep this not ridiculously long, since I saw about 10 temples today during out 12 hour tour... :)
So if you have never heard of Angkor (pronounced anchor) Wat Archaeological Part before, you should google image it to understand the magnificence of this compound. Here's some back history. The Kingdom of Cambodia, as its officially title insinuates, has been run by kings its whole life. There are three periods known by Cambodians; Pre-Angkorian which is pre 9th century, Angkor Period (9-15th century) and Post Angkor (15c to present). The ethnicity of the Cambodia's have always been the Khmer (kuh-mer) people, which they are still called today. They call their country Cambodge, as this is a French colony and many of the names/pronunciations have been influenced by French. The Angkorian period was a period of peace (even though there were a few wars in there) and the "best" kings are considered to come from here. There are two types of stone used during this building that all (but one) the temple were built from, gathered from a quarry over 70km away. The base of the places were built with limestone, and this was awesome being porous so the water didn't sit in the temple and ruin things, it drained through. The outer stone was sandstone, which was like a veneer layer, as this was very soft and easy to carve. In the beginning, the people practices animism, then Hinduism came and they were Hindu's. During the Angkorian period, they decided to become Buddhists, which 95% of the population practices, even though its still a bit influenced by Hindus.
The paragraph titles are the names of the things we saw during our tour + history.
Angkor Thom:
In the early 10th century, Angkor Thom was built. Angkor means capital (kind of) and Thom means big. Angkor Thom was the capital during the beginning of the Angkorian period. In the 10th century, they built a moat around the capital and a small dirt wall. In the 12th century, they decided to make a stone wall where the dirt one was. It encloses a space of 12km. There are 5 entrances, 1 in all directions and 2 to the east. The east is a very important direction for both religious (Hindu/Buddhism), for many reasons, (Buddhism) like the run rises in the east, so its a new beginning. The Hindu's believe there is an invisible mountain the middle of the universe that has 7 levels where all the gods live, and the mountain's entrance is to its east, hence the two east entrances because its important. Each of the gates has sculptures on the sides leading up to it. Don't quote me on the name, but its a Buddhist story called the battle of the milk sea. One of their main gods was reincarnated to a snake and there was a fight between good and evil on the invisible mountain which is found i the middle of the milk sea in the middle of the universe. There is a famous depiction of the snake being tugged (think tug of war) with the good and bad on either sides, with the back puller the gods of good/evil. This is a really popular story, as its depicted in many of the temples. Either side of the road leading up to the gate is either side of the snake being pulled into two.The capital was eventually relocated to its current city of Phnom Penh during a 4 year war with the Siem people. The complex was then abandoned and pretty much not used of after.
Angkor Wat (the famous one)
Wat means temple in Sanskrit, so this is the capital temple, built in the 12th century for a place of worship for the kings, located outside the angkor thom walls. Its surrounded by its own moat, which is pretty awesome because any of the temples sit in their own water, as the porous limestone lets the water run though, but not out from under the temples. But Angkor Wat has a moat so the water goes there, and its been continuously used even after the relocation of the capital, so its the most intact temple in he complex, and also the biggest. Its area encloses an area of 4km and the temple itself is 1km (when i say this, i mean km^2). The temple was built during the Hindu period, and was then used for Buddhist worship when they changed religions in Cambodia. There is 1 gate surrounding the complex, which sits on 4 levels with 3 of them being levels of the buildings. Every single square inch of this place (not including the floor, but including the ceiling) is completely covered in etchings and drawings. Its beautiful! Every little nook and entrance and column is covered in pictures of Hindu Gods, lotuses, bas reliefs (stories), etc. The 1st floor has the bas reliefs on it. They include many of the stories we saw at Prambanan in Indonesia, the famous Hindu ones, also including the battle of the milk sea. Since its a UNESCO, there are many different countries working of recovering the workings, and the US is renovating the milk sea story here. Monks pray at the 3rd story, as there's a monastery next to it. Our tour guide made a point to mention they are not forced monks like the Thais, as he said every male in Thailand has to take a monk-ship in his life.
One of the bas reliefs shows 3 levels in carvings, representing the 3 levels, heaven, earth, and hell. There are 36 Hindu punishments received in hell for different things and they are shown in the bas reliefs. Here are the ones I remember. Adulterers, both the male and female, have to climb a thorn tree and get impaled with the thorns as they do it. Women who have abortions are brought to hell and hot stones are put in their belly. Men who cheat other men have a long stick stuck inside of them.... Quite interesting depictions.
The main entrance here is to the west, not east, for many reasons as well. IT was first built to be a mausoleum they think, since facing the west represents the sun going down and all its insinuations, like the end of life, etc. Also, if it faced the east, it would put its back facing the Angkor Thom capital, which would have just been rude. Its east gate is also very close to the stream that was used to help carry the rocks from the quarry to build, so its the only temple with a west entrance.
From 1177-1181, the Angkorians fought with the Cham (pronounced jam). Cham is a country (region I guess) that Vietnam has since taken over, which is why nobody has heard of it in the US. Anyway, they waged war for 4 years which the temple was being completed, so some places are not complete and were finished later in life by the Buddhist monks in the 16th century (who also pained parts of the Temple red but that has since wore off). Fortunately, there is only one civil war scar (Cambodia vs Khmer rouge, the people who did the genocide from 1975-1979) which was 1 bullet hole.
There are these chambers, which are the the "foyers" into the temple from the outside. If you stand near the walls, you can pound on your chest (make a loud deep noise basically) and it echos! Called the echo chamber, the story behind it is if you are angry and want to get it out, come here and beat your chest and get your anger out and it echos. They had this is another temple also.
When we left breakfast, we passed this place again and saw people taking wedding photos. Our guide said he was recently married and got some shots in front of the temple too, its Siem Reap thing and apparently the rest of Cambodia is jealous. Wouldn't blame them lol Also when we left, our guide showed up this offering. It was a skinned chicken, and you offer the skin which still has its feathers on. The offering is made for the gods to help sickly family members.
Prehn Khan (pray kan)
So the king who built the Angkor Thom also built a large majority of the stuff inside, including this temple. is name was Javavarman VII (I will call him VII because its just easier for me) and is mega famous. Varman (look in his name) is a common title the kings add to their names, as in Sanskrit it means king of gods (or god of kings, but you get the idea). This temple he built for his father, and was used as a university to mainly royals during its time period. VII was the Cambodian who fought back (before he was king) to the Cham people when they started the war and took over. He was made king after that. This temple was built in 1191 on one of the main battlefields during the war. The overall design scheme is a large cross hallways which you could see all the way to the other end from each cross side. In the middle there is a stupa (Buddhist grave stone like thing), but there was originally a bronze statue. More on that later. The doorways are purposely quite small, to force people to bow when they enter. Right now its still being renovated, so its pretty collapsed in.
During the change from Hinduism to Buddhism, all the temple (minus Angkor Wat) was changed. All the wall sculptured of Buddha was removed, leaving an outline of a sitting Buddha where the sharp objects were used to carve out the statue. There are etchings on columns of a cross legged Buddha that were etched over to show an oddly sitting Hindi god and Buddha was giving a beard. You can still see the original Buddha sitting behind it. There are lots of Garuda (Bhrama's bird vehicle in Hinduism, hes like the "head"god) and Naga (the snake) combinations here. Naga is represented in both religions, but now its seen as a Buddhist figure, so these are a show of the coming together of religions.
Another thing here are lingas, which are like pillars with 3 different shaped pieces (think circle pillar with a hexagonal part and a square part) that represents the 3 "head" gods of Hinduism. The pillar is set in a stone block and water is poured on top of it. There is a small drainage canal carved in to the rock that sticks out which is supposed to represent the female organ, and makes the water become holy when it pours out the other side.
This temple, like many others, was very looted. The bronze statue that was in the middle was taken by the Siem people when they were at was with the Cambodians in the 14th century. Its believed it was destroyed and has never again been found. This temple, mainly in the center of the cross, was covered in small holes on the wall that used to hold rubies, sapphires, and copper pieces, to add reflection to the place for beauty. Many deities that are females also had jeweled belly buttons and eyebrows, which have been looted away. Many heads of statues have been taken off to sell on the black market and its still popular to do that these days also.
We saw a nun (looks like monks meaning shaved head lol) here selling stuff to make offerings. She had no teeth. The guide says nuns (women) don't smoke normally, but they chew this harsh tobacco and that's why she has no teeth. He was also explaining this other stuff they chew, a combination of beetle powder and this white paste that comes from firing a clam shell, that turns red when you chew it, which was why her tongue was dyed red. Gross and creepy.
Bayon (bay yuan)
This temple was built by VII for himself, sitting directly in the middle of the 12km square made by the Angkor Thom walls inside the capital. It is different from the rest, as the bas reliefs represent only true stories about Cambodian life. The majority of the bas relief on the outside represent his conquering of the Cham people. There are walls about the land and sea battles, as the war began when the Cham invaded by sea. The different ethnicity's are seen on the wall, as well as the Chinese soldiers who came to help he Cambodians. There are many depictions of the daily life of the Cambodians, with markets, food, etc. There's a funny one of a women who is holding a turtle to cook, and the turtle bites her husband in the butt and he's screaming, its kind of funny.
The coolest thing about this temple is the faces. There are large round blocks with 4 faces (many gods have an additional four faces on the top of their head). There are a total of 49 blocks + 5 from the gates = 54 blocks. These represent the 54 provinces of Cambodia during his time period. So there are 54*4=216 faces. There is only 1 large smiling face with open eyes, showing the peoples love for their king. WE took lot of fun photos that look like we are kissing the statues!
Ba Poon
This is another large temple that you can't go inside (only around) because its still being renovated. They started renovations when the French occupied it. Then it got bombed during the Vietnam War and the top was blown off. The French and after had documented each stone and was rebuilding it, when the Khmer Rouge took power and destroyed all the documentation and where each stone went and what the temple looked like before. So they are having trouble putting it back together. It looks like a pyramid of squares. One of the lengths of the walls used to be a 17m reclining Buddha, which isn't there anymore, you you can still see the outline.
Royal Palace
There isn't actually one here... well there is but its not around anymore, you can only see the royal temple that only the kings + his family used inside the capital. The royal palace and houses were built of wood, so they have since disintegrated, but they found foundations so they know when exist. The wall surrounding the royal complex was made of stones, however its destroyed and in rubble. People believed since it was a royal wall, it had rubies and gold inside of it so they looted it, but there wasn't any and they found none.
Elephant Terrace
This is a stage-like thing that overlooks the parade grounds during the Angkor time, which has 12Buddhist temples (mini ones) on the back. There are lots of carvings of elephants and structural holdings that are made to look like elephants trunks hold of the walls. Cool.
Ta Prohm
This is the Tomb Raider Temple, as it was featured in the movie and pretty much is what brings tourists to Angkor Wat. It was built by VII for his mother and is pretty much in runs minus the main walls. The thing that is SOOO famous about it are the trees. There are 150+ trees here that look like birch, called Sprung (translated Sanskrit). They are white and have the same texture as birch, and the only leafy parts are right at the top. They can grow on about anything and have crazy roots. So there are trees that began to grow on the tops of the walls and have rooted down and around the walls and rocks of the temple walls. You have to google it or look at my FB pictures to understand just how awesome it is....
We went to a few other minor places, such as Batey Kdai and saw what would be the swimming pool (giant lake) in the complex. We saw the oldest temple in the complex built pre-anything else in the 10th century that was made of bricks. We went to the top of a very high hill which has an active Buddhist temple on top (Angkor period as well) to watch the sunset (it was cloudy) but we could get a 360 panorama of the Tonle Sap Lake, Angkor town, Siem Reap, everything! I'll stop, because this is long. Bit it rock, the tour guides all are park certified and went to school for lots of years and do apprentice ships there so they rocked, it was amazing!
So if you have never heard of Angkor (pronounced anchor) Wat Archaeological Part before, you should google image it to understand the magnificence of this compound. Here's some back history. The Kingdom of Cambodia, as its officially title insinuates, has been run by kings its whole life. There are three periods known by Cambodians; Pre-Angkorian which is pre 9th century, Angkor Period (9-15th century) and Post Angkor (15c to present). The ethnicity of the Cambodia's have always been the Khmer (kuh-mer) people, which they are still called today. They call their country Cambodge, as this is a French colony and many of the names/pronunciations have been influenced by French. The Angkorian period was a period of peace (even though there were a few wars in there) and the "best" kings are considered to come from here. There are two types of stone used during this building that all (but one) the temple were built from, gathered from a quarry over 70km away. The base of the places were built with limestone, and this was awesome being porous so the water didn't sit in the temple and ruin things, it drained through. The outer stone was sandstone, which was like a veneer layer, as this was very soft and easy to carve. In the beginning, the people practices animism, then Hinduism came and they were Hindu's. During the Angkorian period, they decided to become Buddhists, which 95% of the population practices, even though its still a bit influenced by Hindus.
The paragraph titles are the names of the things we saw during our tour + history.
Angkor Thom:
In the early 10th century, Angkor Thom was built. Angkor means capital (kind of) and Thom means big. Angkor Thom was the capital during the beginning of the Angkorian period. In the 10th century, they built a moat around the capital and a small dirt wall. In the 12th century, they decided to make a stone wall where the dirt one was. It encloses a space of 12km. There are 5 entrances, 1 in all directions and 2 to the east. The east is a very important direction for both religious (Hindu/Buddhism), for many reasons, (Buddhism) like the run rises in the east, so its a new beginning. The Hindu's believe there is an invisible mountain the middle of the universe that has 7 levels where all the gods live, and the mountain's entrance is to its east, hence the two east entrances because its important. Each of the gates has sculptures on the sides leading up to it. Don't quote me on the name, but its a Buddhist story called the battle of the milk sea. One of their main gods was reincarnated to a snake and there was a fight between good and evil on the invisible mountain which is found i the middle of the milk sea in the middle of the universe. There is a famous depiction of the snake being tugged (think tug of war) with the good and bad on either sides, with the back puller the gods of good/evil. This is a really popular story, as its depicted in many of the temples. Either side of the road leading up to the gate is either side of the snake being pulled into two.The capital was eventually relocated to its current city of Phnom Penh during a 4 year war with the Siem people. The complex was then abandoned and pretty much not used of after.
Angkor Wat (the famous one)
Wat means temple in Sanskrit, so this is the capital temple, built in the 12th century for a place of worship for the kings, located outside the angkor thom walls. Its surrounded by its own moat, which is pretty awesome because any of the temples sit in their own water, as the porous limestone lets the water run though, but not out from under the temples. But Angkor Wat has a moat so the water goes there, and its been continuously used even after the relocation of the capital, so its the most intact temple in he complex, and also the biggest. Its area encloses an area of 4km and the temple itself is 1km (when i say this, i mean km^2). The temple was built during the Hindu period, and was then used for Buddhist worship when they changed religions in Cambodia. There is 1 gate surrounding the complex, which sits on 4 levels with 3 of them being levels of the buildings. Every single square inch of this place (not including the floor, but including the ceiling) is completely covered in etchings and drawings. Its beautiful! Every little nook and entrance and column is covered in pictures of Hindu Gods, lotuses, bas reliefs (stories), etc. The 1st floor has the bas reliefs on it. They include many of the stories we saw at Prambanan in Indonesia, the famous Hindu ones, also including the battle of the milk sea. Since its a UNESCO, there are many different countries working of recovering the workings, and the US is renovating the milk sea story here. Monks pray at the 3rd story, as there's a monastery next to it. Our tour guide made a point to mention they are not forced monks like the Thais, as he said every male in Thailand has to take a monk-ship in his life.
One of the bas reliefs shows 3 levels in carvings, representing the 3 levels, heaven, earth, and hell. There are 36 Hindu punishments received in hell for different things and they are shown in the bas reliefs. Here are the ones I remember. Adulterers, both the male and female, have to climb a thorn tree and get impaled with the thorns as they do it. Women who have abortions are brought to hell and hot stones are put in their belly. Men who cheat other men have a long stick stuck inside of them.... Quite interesting depictions.
The main entrance here is to the west, not east, for many reasons as well. IT was first built to be a mausoleum they think, since facing the west represents the sun going down and all its insinuations, like the end of life, etc. Also, if it faced the east, it would put its back facing the Angkor Thom capital, which would have just been rude. Its east gate is also very close to the stream that was used to help carry the rocks from the quarry to build, so its the only temple with a west entrance.
From 1177-1181, the Angkorians fought with the Cham (pronounced jam). Cham is a country (region I guess) that Vietnam has since taken over, which is why nobody has heard of it in the US. Anyway, they waged war for 4 years which the temple was being completed, so some places are not complete and were finished later in life by the Buddhist monks in the 16th century (who also pained parts of the Temple red but that has since wore off). Fortunately, there is only one civil war scar (Cambodia vs Khmer rouge, the people who did the genocide from 1975-1979) which was 1 bullet hole.
There are these chambers, which are the the "foyers" into the temple from the outside. If you stand near the walls, you can pound on your chest (make a loud deep noise basically) and it echos! Called the echo chamber, the story behind it is if you are angry and want to get it out, come here and beat your chest and get your anger out and it echos. They had this is another temple also.
When we left breakfast, we passed this place again and saw people taking wedding photos. Our guide said he was recently married and got some shots in front of the temple too, its Siem Reap thing and apparently the rest of Cambodia is jealous. Wouldn't blame them lol Also when we left, our guide showed up this offering. It was a skinned chicken, and you offer the skin which still has its feathers on. The offering is made for the gods to help sickly family members.
Prehn Khan (pray kan)
So the king who built the Angkor Thom also built a large majority of the stuff inside, including this temple. is name was Javavarman VII (I will call him VII because its just easier for me) and is mega famous. Varman (look in his name) is a common title the kings add to their names, as in Sanskrit it means king of gods (or god of kings, but you get the idea). This temple he built for his father, and was used as a university to mainly royals during its time period. VII was the Cambodian who fought back (before he was king) to the Cham people when they started the war and took over. He was made king after that. This temple was built in 1191 on one of the main battlefields during the war. The overall design scheme is a large cross hallways which you could see all the way to the other end from each cross side. In the middle there is a stupa (Buddhist grave stone like thing), but there was originally a bronze statue. More on that later. The doorways are purposely quite small, to force people to bow when they enter. Right now its still being renovated, so its pretty collapsed in.
During the change from Hinduism to Buddhism, all the temple (minus Angkor Wat) was changed. All the wall sculptured of Buddha was removed, leaving an outline of a sitting Buddha where the sharp objects were used to carve out the statue. There are etchings on columns of a cross legged Buddha that were etched over to show an oddly sitting Hindi god and Buddha was giving a beard. You can still see the original Buddha sitting behind it. There are lots of Garuda (Bhrama's bird vehicle in Hinduism, hes like the "head"god) and Naga (the snake) combinations here. Naga is represented in both religions, but now its seen as a Buddhist figure, so these are a show of the coming together of religions.
Another thing here are lingas, which are like pillars with 3 different shaped pieces (think circle pillar with a hexagonal part and a square part) that represents the 3 "head" gods of Hinduism. The pillar is set in a stone block and water is poured on top of it. There is a small drainage canal carved in to the rock that sticks out which is supposed to represent the female organ, and makes the water become holy when it pours out the other side.
This temple, like many others, was very looted. The bronze statue that was in the middle was taken by the Siem people when they were at was with the Cambodians in the 14th century. Its believed it was destroyed and has never again been found. This temple, mainly in the center of the cross, was covered in small holes on the wall that used to hold rubies, sapphires, and copper pieces, to add reflection to the place for beauty. Many deities that are females also had jeweled belly buttons and eyebrows, which have been looted away. Many heads of statues have been taken off to sell on the black market and its still popular to do that these days also.
We saw a nun (looks like monks meaning shaved head lol) here selling stuff to make offerings. She had no teeth. The guide says nuns (women) don't smoke normally, but they chew this harsh tobacco and that's why she has no teeth. He was also explaining this other stuff they chew, a combination of beetle powder and this white paste that comes from firing a clam shell, that turns red when you chew it, which was why her tongue was dyed red. Gross and creepy.
Bayon (bay yuan)
This temple was built by VII for himself, sitting directly in the middle of the 12km square made by the Angkor Thom walls inside the capital. It is different from the rest, as the bas reliefs represent only true stories about Cambodian life. The majority of the bas relief on the outside represent his conquering of the Cham people. There are walls about the land and sea battles, as the war began when the Cham invaded by sea. The different ethnicity's are seen on the wall, as well as the Chinese soldiers who came to help he Cambodians. There are many depictions of the daily life of the Cambodians, with markets, food, etc. There's a funny one of a women who is holding a turtle to cook, and the turtle bites her husband in the butt and he's screaming, its kind of funny.
The coolest thing about this temple is the faces. There are large round blocks with 4 faces (many gods have an additional four faces on the top of their head). There are a total of 49 blocks + 5 from the gates = 54 blocks. These represent the 54 provinces of Cambodia during his time period. So there are 54*4=216 faces. There is only 1 large smiling face with open eyes, showing the peoples love for their king. WE took lot of fun photos that look like we are kissing the statues!
Ba Poon
This is another large temple that you can't go inside (only around) because its still being renovated. They started renovations when the French occupied it. Then it got bombed during the Vietnam War and the top was blown off. The French and after had documented each stone and was rebuilding it, when the Khmer Rouge took power and destroyed all the documentation and where each stone went and what the temple looked like before. So they are having trouble putting it back together. It looks like a pyramid of squares. One of the lengths of the walls used to be a 17m reclining Buddha, which isn't there anymore, you you can still see the outline.
Royal Palace
There isn't actually one here... well there is but its not around anymore, you can only see the royal temple that only the kings + his family used inside the capital. The royal palace and houses were built of wood, so they have since disintegrated, but they found foundations so they know when exist. The wall surrounding the royal complex was made of stones, however its destroyed and in rubble. People believed since it was a royal wall, it had rubies and gold inside of it so they looted it, but there wasn't any and they found none.
Elephant Terrace
This is a stage-like thing that overlooks the parade grounds during the Angkor time, which has 12Buddhist temples (mini ones) on the back. There are lots of carvings of elephants and structural holdings that are made to look like elephants trunks hold of the walls. Cool.
Ta Prohm
This is the Tomb Raider Temple, as it was featured in the movie and pretty much is what brings tourists to Angkor Wat. It was built by VII for his mother and is pretty much in runs minus the main walls. The thing that is SOOO famous about it are the trees. There are 150+ trees here that look like birch, called Sprung (translated Sanskrit). They are white and have the same texture as birch, and the only leafy parts are right at the top. They can grow on about anything and have crazy roots. So there are trees that began to grow on the tops of the walls and have rooted down and around the walls and rocks of the temple walls. You have to google it or look at my FB pictures to understand just how awesome it is....
We went to a few other minor places, such as Batey Kdai and saw what would be the swimming pool (giant lake) in the complex. We saw the oldest temple in the complex built pre-anything else in the 10th century that was made of bricks. We went to the top of a very high hill which has an active Buddhist temple on top (Angkor period as well) to watch the sunset (it was cloudy) but we could get a 360 panorama of the Tonle Sap Lake, Angkor town, Siem Reap, everything! I'll stop, because this is long. Bit it rock, the tour guides all are park certified and went to school for lots of years and do apprentice ships there so they rocked, it was amazing!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Day 2: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Sticky keyboard, apologizing in advanced.
Kara and I spent the day on a boat tour of Tonle Sap lake. Its the biggest lake in SE Asia and is quite amazing. it varies per season, from 2m deep and 2500km^2 of area to 12m deep and 12,000km^2 of area! we lucked out, we were the only ones on the boat in our tour, and our guide spoke very good English and wanted to just share everything with us! here is what we did :)
We got picked up in a nice AC Car. even at 8am, the eventual 92 degree weather was in the mid 80s. We drove through the local streets of town and our guide was telling us about the basic jobs in Cambodia, farmer, fisher, and seller. the sellers, business man, either are educated and are "rich men" or they set up a small convenient store-like shop out of the downstairs and sell snacks and gas. the people i learned liked to buy gas from these people as the gas pumps charge a government tax. We got to see the rich and poor men house, as he differentiated. Just as an example, the rich man would own a color TV (not big screen, LCD, or multiple channels...) and the poor man couldn't afford one. They were all stilt houses. The rich ones were nicely painted, made out of nice wood and some had stucco looking coverings. the poor houses were smaller stilts made out of wood and the walls/roof was dried palm leaves. The stilts were for many things besides just to keep the house safe from the highly fluctuating river, such as protecting from dangerous snakes and insects and a place to keep the cows and dogs and chickens, which most have. The right side of the road was the rich side, as they backed up to a rice paddy and were allowed to own land. The poor left side backed up to the river, which wasn't allowed to be owned as it was government property.
We reached the end of a long road at a ''mountain' which was just a tall hill with a temple on top. It was the ONLY high ground around and was useful for helping lost fisherman get back to the port. This is a lake that looks like the great lakes, like an ocean. There are a number of villages inside and out and i will try and explain the best I can. a long time ago, there were two types of villages, the stilt ones and the floating houses. The floating houses are actually movable and not attached to the lake by any means. Education became harder for both villages, as high schools and even secondary schools were only being built in the city, so their children had no transportation and possibly not enough money even to attend the city schools. The villages then got left in the dust and were very poor. The floating villages try to adapt, but building some stilt houses along a road build by the pier to the lake, which was owned by a Korean company to promote tourism on the lake. They also built permanent floating houses and schools, meaning they rise with the water but are anchored to the ground. So now, there are floating villagers that part of the year live on the lake, part of the year live in these new houses. There is still a purely stilt village we visited, as well as one other village that has stilt houses but takes them apart and moves on dry land during the year. and then re-builds back when they are done!
When I saw floating village, i don't mean like just houses live we've seen in Indonesia. These are legit 'gas stations", food stores, religious buildings, restaurants, etc everything is floating. So we are in mega dry season right now, and the lake is at its lowest, and is this ugly clay color of mud since its only a few feet deep. We can see the whole mangrove forest of trees towering 10s of feet into the air. During the rainy season, only the tip tops of these trees are visible, how neat! We sent to each village and saw how each season gave a different way to catch fish, including some acre-long complicated contraptions that look like mazes... The stilt village was all dried up, so we walked through it. The children had just got out of school, as they only went to school half a day (and had to go to the city past primary school). There were all sorts of animals and naked babies running around again. I learned all the animals but the pigs were allowed into the houses during the flooded season, and the pigs had a communal floating pen. There was one place that was high enough to be always not flooded, the town monastery. they had local monks who lived off the towns donations and we got to see the small kitchen where the old ladies cooked for them. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and cannot be alone talking with a lady or touch one ever. They had lots of stupas and pagodas being built, and our guide told us that bodies were cremated in there, as they don't bury their dead like many others do.
We got to see the small primary school, which had gotten recent money from NUS (college in Singapore)'s angel fund. It had wide access to the towns water supply that was put up about 40 feet in the air to keep from contamination from the flooded seasons. Each house had pipe access to the water, and there was a small well by the monastery that had a sign that it was donated form a family from PA. Each house also had battery-operated electricity that they had to charge daily. Somehow. There was drying peanuts and shrimp on the sidewalk. I learned the dried shrimp goes for 3 times as much money per kilo than fresh shrimp here. Makes sense, as in Singapore they literally sprinkle it on EVERYTHING like it was salt or Parmesan cheese or something....
We went back to the floating village to see a restaurant where they kept some animals for attraction. They have small crocodiles at this lake, and they are a great catch/breed for people as they are very expensive to sell to surrounding countries. They also farm catfish here to make money during the low seasons. We learned that there can be over 400,000 tons of fish caught each year here, and as well as 5 million snakes (also caught to sell to feed the crocs and eaten, including pythons). There were small boys waiting in little boats for us, and when we approached the floating restaurants, tried to come in the boat to let us hold their pythons. These little 6 years olds were relentless. There was already a 3 year old (I swear to god he was 3) who jumped into our moving boat from his fathers moving canoe with a huge bucket of beer to try and sell us.... Anyway, we got to see there are over 400 kinds of fish here and they sell rice "wine"(liquor) they soak in scorpions and snakes to make more potent.....
Unfortunately, Alma made it to the airport just on time and forgot her passport and won't be joining us :(
the market here is amazing. Bought presents, so can't tell you specifics :) BUT there are amazing real gemstone jewelry and silk and homemade soaps and everything SOOO cheap here! Misquitos are out really bad tonight though :/ The food here is great and very cheap. The alcoholic beverages are about 25cents a beer, we had 8 margaritas for $5 tonight with dinner. Its ridiculous. Can't complain. But must get sleep, got a 5am sunrise tour of Angkor in the morning :)
Kara and I spent the day on a boat tour of Tonle Sap lake. Its the biggest lake in SE Asia and is quite amazing. it varies per season, from 2m deep and 2500km^2 of area to 12m deep and 12,000km^2 of area! we lucked out, we were the only ones on the boat in our tour, and our guide spoke very good English and wanted to just share everything with us! here is what we did :)
We got picked up in a nice AC Car. even at 8am, the eventual 92 degree weather was in the mid 80s. We drove through the local streets of town and our guide was telling us about the basic jobs in Cambodia, farmer, fisher, and seller. the sellers, business man, either are educated and are "rich men" or they set up a small convenient store-like shop out of the downstairs and sell snacks and gas. the people i learned liked to buy gas from these people as the gas pumps charge a government tax. We got to see the rich and poor men house, as he differentiated. Just as an example, the rich man would own a color TV (not big screen, LCD, or multiple channels...) and the poor man couldn't afford one. They were all stilt houses. The rich ones were nicely painted, made out of nice wood and some had stucco looking coverings. the poor houses were smaller stilts made out of wood and the walls/roof was dried palm leaves. The stilts were for many things besides just to keep the house safe from the highly fluctuating river, such as protecting from dangerous snakes and insects and a place to keep the cows and dogs and chickens, which most have. The right side of the road was the rich side, as they backed up to a rice paddy and were allowed to own land. The poor left side backed up to the river, which wasn't allowed to be owned as it was government property.
We reached the end of a long road at a ''mountain' which was just a tall hill with a temple on top. It was the ONLY high ground around and was useful for helping lost fisherman get back to the port. This is a lake that looks like the great lakes, like an ocean. There are a number of villages inside and out and i will try and explain the best I can. a long time ago, there were two types of villages, the stilt ones and the floating houses. The floating houses are actually movable and not attached to the lake by any means. Education became harder for both villages, as high schools and even secondary schools were only being built in the city, so their children had no transportation and possibly not enough money even to attend the city schools. The villages then got left in the dust and were very poor. The floating villages try to adapt, but building some stilt houses along a road build by the pier to the lake, which was owned by a Korean company to promote tourism on the lake. They also built permanent floating houses and schools, meaning they rise with the water but are anchored to the ground. So now, there are floating villagers that part of the year live on the lake, part of the year live in these new houses. There is still a purely stilt village we visited, as well as one other village that has stilt houses but takes them apart and moves on dry land during the year. and then re-builds back when they are done!
When I saw floating village, i don't mean like just houses live we've seen in Indonesia. These are legit 'gas stations", food stores, religious buildings, restaurants, etc everything is floating. So we are in mega dry season right now, and the lake is at its lowest, and is this ugly clay color of mud since its only a few feet deep. We can see the whole mangrove forest of trees towering 10s of feet into the air. During the rainy season, only the tip tops of these trees are visible, how neat! We sent to each village and saw how each season gave a different way to catch fish, including some acre-long complicated contraptions that look like mazes... The stilt village was all dried up, so we walked through it. The children had just got out of school, as they only went to school half a day (and had to go to the city past primary school). There were all sorts of animals and naked babies running around again. I learned all the animals but the pigs were allowed into the houses during the flooded season, and the pigs had a communal floating pen. There was one place that was high enough to be always not flooded, the town monastery. they had local monks who lived off the towns donations and we got to see the small kitchen where the old ladies cooked for them. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and cannot be alone talking with a lady or touch one ever. They had lots of stupas and pagodas being built, and our guide told us that bodies were cremated in there, as they don't bury their dead like many others do.
We got to see the small primary school, which had gotten recent money from NUS (college in Singapore)'s angel fund. It had wide access to the towns water supply that was put up about 40 feet in the air to keep from contamination from the flooded seasons. Each house had pipe access to the water, and there was a small well by the monastery that had a sign that it was donated form a family from PA. Each house also had battery-operated electricity that they had to charge daily. Somehow. There was drying peanuts and shrimp on the sidewalk. I learned the dried shrimp goes for 3 times as much money per kilo than fresh shrimp here. Makes sense, as in Singapore they literally sprinkle it on EVERYTHING like it was salt or Parmesan cheese or something....
We went back to the floating village to see a restaurant where they kept some animals for attraction. They have small crocodiles at this lake, and they are a great catch/breed for people as they are very expensive to sell to surrounding countries. They also farm catfish here to make money during the low seasons. We learned that there can be over 400,000 tons of fish caught each year here, and as well as 5 million snakes (also caught to sell to feed the crocs and eaten, including pythons). There were small boys waiting in little boats for us, and when we approached the floating restaurants, tried to come in the boat to let us hold their pythons. These little 6 years olds were relentless. There was already a 3 year old (I swear to god he was 3) who jumped into our moving boat from his fathers moving canoe with a huge bucket of beer to try and sell us.... Anyway, we got to see there are over 400 kinds of fish here and they sell rice "wine"(liquor) they soak in scorpions and snakes to make more potent.....
Unfortunately, Alma made it to the airport just on time and forgot her passport and won't be joining us :(
the market here is amazing. Bought presents, so can't tell you specifics :) BUT there are amazing real gemstone jewelry and silk and homemade soaps and everything SOOO cheap here! Misquitos are out really bad tonight though :/ The food here is great and very cheap. The alcoholic beverages are about 25cents a beer, we had 8 margaritas for $5 tonight with dinner. Its ridiculous. Can't complain. But must get sleep, got a 5am sunrise tour of Angkor in the morning :)
Monday, May 2, 2011
Day 1: Phnom penh/Siem Reap, Cambodia
So what I am trying to do this vacation is post at the end of the days, since we will be here for 8 days and thats just a bit too much for me to write on one day11
Our hour and a half flight went pretty quick. I'm taking this trip with Kara, an American from the Midwest. As we were going through customs of the surprisingly nice Phnom Penh airport in the capital city o Cambodia, We saw on the news station that bin Ladin was dead. Of course there was no Internet so I didn't get to see anything more. It was sooo hot when we got outside. It's in the low 90s with about 80% humidity and it's dry season. The air was filled with heat haze and dust. We got into our motorized tuk tuk to our hostel where were getting picked up by the bus for an exciting six hour bus ride across country to Siem Reap for a few days.
Immediately this place looks like Vietnam. Try drove on the right side o he road and the building style and street set up was Vietnamese. The french controlled this country during the colonial era so the rarely used secondary translation was French. We drove a good spam of the city and got to see the highlights. The streets were sandy and dirty and it wasn't very crowded. There were a few multiple story buildings along the road by the airport but most were abandoned during or after construction. A few of these buildings had signs that read they were government buildings including, ironically, the department of labour building which was abandoned during construction. As we got closer to the city center, Which was very small and consisted of low rise buildings for a capital, the new government buildings towered and were quite pretty. Everything just had a layer of dust and sand and trash. No green and very dry.
We got to our hostel Where we were picking up and waiting for the bus. It's was lovely with a pool good prices. Everybody uses America money but only bills. All purchases or change under a dollar was dealt in reils, the Cambodian currency. We got onto a bus an hour later bit was slightly air conditioned and two stories, us at the top. There is a large river and lake that connects the two cities. The bus road, unpaved but bring paved, runs to he north east of the lake which has almost no cities. There were a few very poor and small villages with stilt houses up against the raised road overlooking a large dry plain of nothing. There are small farm squares for rice and other things but it's out of season and it looks like I could be in Africa or something. There was a hill and a few other spots inherent distance where u can see temples towering which was pretty neat. As the day went on, things did get greener as time went on. There were lots of Lilly pads growing in puddles. There were lots of little naked babies running around with dogs and cows. There seems to be lots of happy animals and kids running around. It was nice at night, seeing the stars since Singapore is just so bright.
Siem Reap was very quiet when we arrived. We are staying at a 3 star hotel for $6.50 per night with free tuk-tuks everywhere in the city. We went out for dinner, eating some weird pizza with free beer. As soon as we got to the food area of our part of town, a small boy carrying a baby came and grabbed by side, pleading he needed to eat. Common ploy, but still sad none the less. The market here is insanely awesome. Real gemstone jewelry for dirt cheap and silk everything. this will be a fun trip :) Keyboard on this computer sucks and driving me nuts, will write more tomorrow!
Our hour and a half flight went pretty quick. I'm taking this trip with Kara, an American from the Midwest. As we were going through customs of the surprisingly nice Phnom Penh airport in the capital city o Cambodia, We saw on the news station that bin Ladin was dead. Of course there was no Internet so I didn't get to see anything more. It was sooo hot when we got outside. It's in the low 90s with about 80% humidity and it's dry season. The air was filled with heat haze and dust. We got into our motorized tuk tuk to our hostel where were getting picked up by the bus for an exciting six hour bus ride across country to Siem Reap for a few days.
Immediately this place looks like Vietnam. Try drove on the right side o he road and the building style and street set up was Vietnamese. The french controlled this country during the colonial era so the rarely used secondary translation was French. We drove a good spam of the city and got to see the highlights. The streets were sandy and dirty and it wasn't very crowded. There were a few multiple story buildings along the road by the airport but most were abandoned during or after construction. A few of these buildings had signs that read they were government buildings including, ironically, the department of labour building which was abandoned during construction. As we got closer to the city center, Which was very small and consisted of low rise buildings for a capital, the new government buildings towered and were quite pretty. Everything just had a layer of dust and sand and trash. No green and very dry.
We got to our hostel Where we were picking up and waiting for the bus. It's was lovely with a pool good prices. Everybody uses America money but only bills. All purchases or change under a dollar was dealt in reils, the Cambodian currency. We got onto a bus an hour later bit was slightly air conditioned and two stories, us at the top. There is a large river and lake that connects the two cities. The bus road, unpaved but bring paved, runs to he north east of the lake which has almost no cities. There were a few very poor and small villages with stilt houses up against the raised road overlooking a large dry plain of nothing. There are small farm squares for rice and other things but it's out of season and it looks like I could be in Africa or something. There was a hill and a few other spots inherent distance where u can see temples towering which was pretty neat. As the day went on, things did get greener as time went on. There were lots of Lilly pads growing in puddles. There were lots of little naked babies running around with dogs and cows. There seems to be lots of happy animals and kids running around. It was nice at night, seeing the stars since Singapore is just so bright.
Siem Reap was very quiet when we arrived. We are staying at a 3 star hotel for $6.50 per night with free tuk-tuks everywhere in the city. We went out for dinner, eating some weird pizza with free beer. As soon as we got to the food area of our part of town, a small boy carrying a baby came and grabbed by side, pleading he needed to eat. Common ploy, but still sad none the less. The market here is insanely awesome. Real gemstone jewelry for dirt cheap and silk everything. this will be a fun trip :) Keyboard on this computer sucks and driving me nuts, will write more tomorrow!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Day 5: Yogyakarta, Indonesia
We woke up in the early morning and grabbed a taxi to the airport. Our driver sounded like he had a cold and we got to hear his hacking and coughing up things the whole gross 30 minutes ride to the airport. We had some issues here. Instead of like the rest of the world. you paid airport tax not in the cost of your ticket, but separately here. It was $10USD. We had NO money. We argued with the lady, telling her what do you want us to do? We had NO money left and we need to get on our plane. She pretty much said that sucks. As we were arguing with her, a nice Indian couple came up to us and lent us the money. They were flying to Singapore, so we did get to pay us back. But this pretty much ruined the day for us, as we were freaking out that we couldn't leave the country....
Overall it was an amazing trip! We learned so much and got to see great nature and be in non-touristy areas, which are always the best!!! Only have 23 more days here, with 8 days in Cambodia coming up and a few big Singaporean trips this weekend. 4 exams, 1 test, and 1 paper to go :)
Overall it was an amazing trip! We learned so much and got to see great nature and be in non-touristy areas, which are always the best!!! Only have 23 more days here, with 8 days in Cambodia coming up and a few big Singaporean trips this weekend. 4 exams, 1 test, and 1 paper to go :)
Day 4: Kaliurung/Solo, Indonesia
Funny story. So we got up at 3am to meet our drivers to the sunrise tour to see a temple, which was an hour away. We got to this little village and went into one of the rooms, where we were told to wait and eat (they gave us tea and toast) while waiting on the other people to join us. Long story short, they took us to the wrong tour. We were getting briefed on our climb up Mt. Merapi when we realized this isn't what I think it is. I re-read the confirmation, and still have NO idea how there was a mix up, but the original reason we came to Indonesia was to climb this mountain so we decided to stay. Quick back history: Merapi, meaning fire (mer) mountain (api) in Sanskrit, is considered to be the most active volcano in the world, given this title by a group of vulcanologist who are in charge of making this list. It erupts big at least once a year, with larger explosions every 7 years and HUGE ones every 70. The mountain is surrounded by many small villages, which we could consider to be developing places. In Nov 2010, they had their 7-0 year gigantic explosion. It killed 300 people and there are 100 missing. They had a month warning thanks to technology, but a few villages refused to clear out because they believe their daily prayers and offerings would prevent the volcano to explode. The village closest to the dangerous side, the south where the eruption flows happened this time, decided to all stay put (there was 30 of them) since their chief spiritual man said it won't explode, I've been praying. They unfortunately were all buried alive in the explosion.
Our guide, Christian, was a very famous man in his country. His village was the most developed due to his fame. There is one ecologist on the main 5 islands of Indonesia, and he was Java's ecologist. He was man of the year in Indonesia a few years back. He is also a firefighter and in his 60s. He told us we would be going up on a hill/ridge where its considered to be the level 3 danger zone. He was one of the few allowed there because of his expertise and said we would be safe. It was drizzling when we left at 5am, and the sun was barely up when we started the walk. Within 20 min, we had reached the danger zone, which was a little scary if you lived in that village! We stood on the ridge facing the mountain. Now imagine. To the left, was the Kaliurung village we had just left. The trees in the forest were standing with no leaves, but there was lots of green low brush growing back. To the right was N.O.T.H.I.N.G. For as far as the eye could see, there were flattened trees, all brown and no green, burnt by the 1000C + hot pyroclastic flow that had tore through the area. All the trees looked like sticks, flattened in the same direction. The valley below us we were looking in had mini gorges in it, caused by another giant explosion in the 1000AD time period. There was literally no green anywhere to be seen, it was unreal.
In the distance you could see the villages. Christian pointed us out the first village that got hit where the villagers decided to stay. They had since dug out the houses. There was a line of small villages on another ridge next to the valley, with destroyed houses that looked very odd, as they were colorfully painted, the only color in the stripped land. There was a temporary road that had been built. Christian said the villagers lived in a temporary government refugee camp and would return to their village only during the day, when it was safe, to keep tabs on their belongings. Apparently, many city people would come to the evacuated villages and steal things.There was a total of 22 villages destroyed by the blast. All of this happened in only 13 minutes.
We stayed on this ridge for another 2 hours about. Christian showed us growing tiger balm and cinnamon. We had lots of fallen tree to climb over, it was quite a hike. We came across a former seismology center. In the month before the explosion, it was stripped of its equipment for safety reasons. The left over steel structure was grossly twisted and knocked down, completely destroyed and useless. It was magnificent in a very scary way. When the morning haze cleared, you could clearly see all the way to the top of the 2975m volcano. It had blown off 10m from Nov 2010, previously 2985m. The explosion caused the peak to explode in half, resulting in two peaks with the crater in the middle. There was huge columns of white smoke coming out of the top, which was safe, given it wasn't black. Christan told us he uses a combination of technology and nature to determine when the volcano will erupt. Technology can track the rising lava from inside the crater, but there are other natural ways to tell. He told me three ways and I only remember two. First, snakes will start to run away, since they live underground and can sense the changes. Also, dogs will start to bark at the volcano. Speaking of animals, there are macaws and black panthers that live whats left of the forest around Merapi. Christan had seen 3 panthers i nth 6 years he has been giving tours and believes there are only 10 left since the explosion. They live in the caves right near the base of the volcano.
We reached the end of the ridge and found flowers laid on newspaper. Locals still come to give offerings to the volcano. Christian told us of the horror stories of 1 of the people who has died climbing the volcano, because he chose to take a bad path (he was actually climbing it on the rock faces) and about a couple who was lost for 4 days and the rescue efforts that went into finding them. He said the royal family and Yogya sultan come out once a year to make their annual offerings. They and many others believe there is an invisible kingdom inside the volcano. Christian said he doubts if he will ever climb to the peak ever again after this past explosion. He believes is a sign from nature that the mountain is saying "stop putting your feet on me, leave me alone" and he is going to respect that.
We continued down another way into the more protected valley near Kaliurung village. We came across a park and waterfall snuggled up to the valley, which had much destruction from falling trees from the blast. The waterfall was tall but weak, this being the beginning of dry season in Indonesia. We same to the "touristy" part of the park. Once again, we are the only tourists around. This is not an area for tourists or westerners, as most of the "tourists" are people from local villages. We had our second of three breakfasts, a nice variety of local breakfast foods. There was these fried omelet looking things, with tomatoes, onions, etc that you ate with whole green chile's. They had friend bananas and my favorite, sticky coconut rice you sandwich around cooked soy with brown sugar. Delicious. We walked back to the village a bit later after talking to Christian a bit more about Indonesia and went to our starting point where we had yet another breakfast, this time more westernized. We got banana pancakes, like the amazing pancakes we had in Bintan (Indonesia) With bananas inside we dipped in honey. We got fruit also, which included avocado. He brought out fresh milk for our tea "from the cow down the street" that had been taken that morning. Amazing!
It was a little funny, Christian had asked us about Obama. Everybody in Indonesia said two things when they met us. They asked Alma is she was mixed (Asia, which she isn't) and if we knew Obama. He studied around here in high school, his step dad from Indonesia. Christan said when he came to visiting in November after the explosion, he spoke Indonesia and pretty much dropped everybody to the floor when he spoke.
We decided to not go back to the temple, as we pretty much had no money left, and to catch a bus and go to Solo. It was a two hour bus ride through cities with no AC and people here don't have a large of a bubble as Americans do, so it was very crowded and awkward. About every stop, which consisted of a guy hanging out the back of the bus door, which were opened the whole ride, and he would bang on the bus if he saw a guy waving the bus down. The bus slowed down, didn't stop, and the passenger would make a leap onto the bus. There were musicians that got on about every stop, mostly young men with tattoos and ear piercings singing and playing the guitar or ukulele. They would come around for tips at the end. On the way back from Solo, we had some rude musicians get all bothered that us two tourists didn't give them loads of money, since everyone assumes us to be rich, but it wasn't that bad the whole time. The music was nice! There were a few people tyring to sell food and wallets and pens (weird), they would give them to you and come back around to see if you wanted to pay or if you opened the food and already started eating it. I almost fell for that, confused why I was getting free food, but caught on luckily.
Solo was quite disappointing. I had read its the cultural rival to Yogya and less touristy so you can see the real Indonesia. I think it had more to do with the fact that NOBODY had a map so we were lost literally 100% of the time we were there and it was Sunday, the day of rest, so about 90% of everything was closed. NOBODY spoke English. IT was hard trying to tell people where to go in the tuk-tuks, which we only knew one place that was open the antique market. Big rip off. Nobody wanted to haggle, which was weird, because there are NO tourists that come here, so who else would buy their junk? There were a few rude people here, but we figured they aren't as sued to tourists as Yogya and everywhere else was so it was whatever. We wandered around another local market, lost, and upset that we couldn't even book a bike tour like we wanted too since all the tour guide were off on Sundays. IT was bad planning, and we ended up just getting back on the bike and leaving. It was just a day of confusion from the start, as we got mega lost when we returned to Yogya but eventually found our way back to our hostel, where we sat down for some westernized Indonesian food and beer.
Our guide, Christian, was a very famous man in his country. His village was the most developed due to his fame. There is one ecologist on the main 5 islands of Indonesia, and he was Java's ecologist. He was man of the year in Indonesia a few years back. He is also a firefighter and in his 60s. He told us we would be going up on a hill/ridge where its considered to be the level 3 danger zone. He was one of the few allowed there because of his expertise and said we would be safe. It was drizzling when we left at 5am, and the sun was barely up when we started the walk. Within 20 min, we had reached the danger zone, which was a little scary if you lived in that village! We stood on the ridge facing the mountain. Now imagine. To the left, was the Kaliurung village we had just left. The trees in the forest were standing with no leaves, but there was lots of green low brush growing back. To the right was N.O.T.H.I.N.G. For as far as the eye could see, there were flattened trees, all brown and no green, burnt by the 1000C + hot pyroclastic flow that had tore through the area. All the trees looked like sticks, flattened in the same direction. The valley below us we were looking in had mini gorges in it, caused by another giant explosion in the 1000AD time period. There was literally no green anywhere to be seen, it was unreal.
In the distance you could see the villages. Christian pointed us out the first village that got hit where the villagers decided to stay. They had since dug out the houses. There was a line of small villages on another ridge next to the valley, with destroyed houses that looked very odd, as they were colorfully painted, the only color in the stripped land. There was a temporary road that had been built. Christian said the villagers lived in a temporary government refugee camp and would return to their village only during the day, when it was safe, to keep tabs on their belongings. Apparently, many city people would come to the evacuated villages and steal things.There was a total of 22 villages destroyed by the blast. All of this happened in only 13 minutes.
We stayed on this ridge for another 2 hours about. Christian showed us growing tiger balm and cinnamon. We had lots of fallen tree to climb over, it was quite a hike. We came across a former seismology center. In the month before the explosion, it was stripped of its equipment for safety reasons. The left over steel structure was grossly twisted and knocked down, completely destroyed and useless. It was magnificent in a very scary way. When the morning haze cleared, you could clearly see all the way to the top of the 2975m volcano. It had blown off 10m from Nov 2010, previously 2985m. The explosion caused the peak to explode in half, resulting in two peaks with the crater in the middle. There was huge columns of white smoke coming out of the top, which was safe, given it wasn't black. Christan told us he uses a combination of technology and nature to determine when the volcano will erupt. Technology can track the rising lava from inside the crater, but there are other natural ways to tell. He told me three ways and I only remember two. First, snakes will start to run away, since they live underground and can sense the changes. Also, dogs will start to bark at the volcano. Speaking of animals, there are macaws and black panthers that live whats left of the forest around Merapi. Christan had seen 3 panthers i nth 6 years he has been giving tours and believes there are only 10 left since the explosion. They live in the caves right near the base of the volcano.
We reached the end of the ridge and found flowers laid on newspaper. Locals still come to give offerings to the volcano. Christian told us of the horror stories of 1 of the people who has died climbing the volcano, because he chose to take a bad path (he was actually climbing it on the rock faces) and about a couple who was lost for 4 days and the rescue efforts that went into finding them. He said the royal family and Yogya sultan come out once a year to make their annual offerings. They and many others believe there is an invisible kingdom inside the volcano. Christian said he doubts if he will ever climb to the peak ever again after this past explosion. He believes is a sign from nature that the mountain is saying "stop putting your feet on me, leave me alone" and he is going to respect that.
We continued down another way into the more protected valley near Kaliurung village. We came across a park and waterfall snuggled up to the valley, which had much destruction from falling trees from the blast. The waterfall was tall but weak, this being the beginning of dry season in Indonesia. We same to the "touristy" part of the park. Once again, we are the only tourists around. This is not an area for tourists or westerners, as most of the "tourists" are people from local villages. We had our second of three breakfasts, a nice variety of local breakfast foods. There was these fried omelet looking things, with tomatoes, onions, etc that you ate with whole green chile's. They had friend bananas and my favorite, sticky coconut rice you sandwich around cooked soy with brown sugar. Delicious. We walked back to the village a bit later after talking to Christian a bit more about Indonesia and went to our starting point where we had yet another breakfast, this time more westernized. We got banana pancakes, like the amazing pancakes we had in Bintan (Indonesia) With bananas inside we dipped in honey. We got fruit also, which included avocado. He brought out fresh milk for our tea "from the cow down the street" that had been taken that morning. Amazing!
It was a little funny, Christian had asked us about Obama. Everybody in Indonesia said two things when they met us. They asked Alma is she was mixed (Asia, which she isn't) and if we knew Obama. He studied around here in high school, his step dad from Indonesia. Christan said when he came to visiting in November after the explosion, he spoke Indonesia and pretty much dropped everybody to the floor when he spoke.
We decided to not go back to the temple, as we pretty much had no money left, and to catch a bus and go to Solo. It was a two hour bus ride through cities with no AC and people here don't have a large of a bubble as Americans do, so it was very crowded and awkward. About every stop, which consisted of a guy hanging out the back of the bus door, which were opened the whole ride, and he would bang on the bus if he saw a guy waving the bus down. The bus slowed down, didn't stop, and the passenger would make a leap onto the bus. There were musicians that got on about every stop, mostly young men with tattoos and ear piercings singing and playing the guitar or ukulele. They would come around for tips at the end. On the way back from Solo, we had some rude musicians get all bothered that us two tourists didn't give them loads of money, since everyone assumes us to be rich, but it wasn't that bad the whole time. The music was nice! There were a few people tyring to sell food and wallets and pens (weird), they would give them to you and come back around to see if you wanted to pay or if you opened the food and already started eating it. I almost fell for that, confused why I was getting free food, but caught on luckily.
Solo was quite disappointing. I had read its the cultural rival to Yogya and less touristy so you can see the real Indonesia. I think it had more to do with the fact that NOBODY had a map so we were lost literally 100% of the time we were there and it was Sunday, the day of rest, so about 90% of everything was closed. NOBODY spoke English. IT was hard trying to tell people where to go in the tuk-tuks, which we only knew one place that was open the antique market. Big rip off. Nobody wanted to haggle, which was weird, because there are NO tourists that come here, so who else would buy their junk? There were a few rude people here, but we figured they aren't as sued to tourists as Yogya and everywhere else was so it was whatever. We wandered around another local market, lost, and upset that we couldn't even book a bike tour like we wanted too since all the tour guide were off on Sundays. IT was bad planning, and we ended up just getting back on the bike and leaving. It was just a day of confusion from the start, as we got mega lost when we returned to Yogya but eventually found our way back to our hostel, where we sat down for some westernized Indonesian food and beer.
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