Don and his wallet become main attraction in the village as each girl vies for him to buy her scarves and sarongs.
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Village meat market on the way home from Bantey Srei.
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Interior courtyards of Bantey Srei
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Intricate decoration at Bantey Srei
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"Land-Mine Orchestra," as it calls itself, at Bantey Srei. We bought their CD and it's terrific.
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Bantey Srei, Early Pink Temple, "Citadel of Women"

Bantey Srei was built sometime in the second half of the 10th century, around 967. It is a sort of temple-in-miniature, rendered in pinkish sandstone with quite detailed carvings. It is about 45 minutes away from the rest of the Angkor temples by bus, through several small villages. We watched rice-transplanting, water buffalo driving, swimming, palm sap boiling, and other village roadside activities as we went through. We stopped once to get a taste of the local market, but we were spotted within minutes and surrounded by young women vending sarongs, silk bags, scarves, and carved toys.

In the temple of Bantey Srei the doorways are smaller and lower than at other sites, giving it a fairy-house charm unlike the large-scale gray massiveness of the other Angkor temples we have seen. Scholars write that it is more Indian in style and decoration than some of the other temples, and nearly every surface in the central complex is densely carved with filigree and vines. Many panels depict scenes from the Ramayana. In many place the original roof was probably timber and has long since disintegrated, leaving long colonnades of support-columns without any roof.

We, and several hundred Japanese and Korean tourists, cheerfully wandered the diminutive halls and imagined the roofs overhead, while in the background a "land-mine orchestra" of a dozen people with limbs missing sat on a nearby tarp and played exquisite music on an assortment of instruments: xylophones with the keys suspended on strings like a bridge, a 4-stringed thing like a small cello with a gourd for the base part, flutes, drums, and one man playing a green leaf like a kazoo making the most haunting melody.

Thompson and Forrest in the doorways of Bantey Srei, 8/3/05
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Korean tourists... generally very colorful and with fun shoes, too
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Rice transplanting in the small villages en route to Bantey Srei, 8/3/05
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Drying banana leaves to wrap palm-sugar lumps. Behind is a Cambodian house, elevated so there is a shady spot underneath for working, animals, weaving, or sleeping.
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Halle buying a stack of bracelets from a young vendor.
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Indra the three-headed elephant, a common motif, on the door lintel at Preah Rup.
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Preah Rup: view from the top.
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Preah Rup, morning of 8/3/05

This large pink-looking building with five massive towers crowning a series of stepped platforms, was probably a cremation site. It is built entirely of brick and pink laterite, so it glows in the morning sun, which is when we visited it. We climbed up to the highest terrace on steep, pitted laterite steps to enjoy the amazing view of the surrounding plain.

This warm pink cremation temple is Preah Rup, similar in structure to East Mebon but not situated in the middle of the resevoir. We visited it on the morning of 8/3/05
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Need a ride? Climb on. We routinely saw three, four, even five people on motorcycles and scooters, along with improbably-balanced loads... once, an entire section of cast-iron fencing.
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Siem Reap street scene 8/3/05
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Heading for the "Knight Bus" for another morning of sightseeing, 8/3/05. This whole vehicle just for our family!
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Mornings and late afternoons we went temple-looking. In between we took siestas and went swimming in the hotel pool. Ahh.
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These "stone" elephants spray into the hotel pool. Refreshing!
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