Travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia - Day Three

Last night, I was too tired and slept so early. I think it was around 10pm. But I was awake in the midnight and I couldn't sleep for a while. So I wrote postcards to my Thai teacher, my dad and my friends in Japan. I didn't wrote letter nor even postcard for long long long time, or maybe I have never wrote letter to him. So I wrote it because I wanted to make my dad happy. :) It was about 5am when I finished writing postcards and fall asleep again...

I woke up 7am in the morning, had breakfast at hotel. We met the taxi driver 9am past several mins. At first, he said US$25 per day, but after I show him a list of places where we want to go, he told us that one of the places is far from city area, so we have to pay double. :S
But he told us that place a bit far from central area, is different from other ruins and very nice place. So we decided to pay him US$50 and ask him to bring us there.


Near the entrance of the ruin, some people were playing musical instruments. They were introducing them as Cambodian musical instruments, but for me, it looks almost same as Thai musical instruments that I played in Singapore. Thailand and Cambodia is neighbor countries each other, so maybe they have similar cultures.


This is one wall in Banteay Srei, the ruin which is located a bit far but unique one. What different from other ruins here is color of walls/stones and its detailed carvings. Mostly, color of other ruins are just gray color of stone. But they used pink color stone to built up this temple, so whole temple is pink color.
This temple was built in 967, it is BEFORE Angkor Wat nor Angkor Thom, but sculptures in Banteay Srei is much more precise than any other temples built in later years.

After visiting Banteay Srei, we went to see Pre Rup and Banteay Kdei. In these two tuins, I saw something interesting than stones or carvings.
There were 3 girls in front of Pre Rup, selling bracelets. But they were not so persistent as other places, and their bracelets was much cheeper. Yesterday in Angkor Wat girls there were selling 4-5 for US$1, but here they sell 15 for US$1 with counting 1-15 in Japanese. It is sooo cute. At first, they tried to sell these bracelets to us, but after talking us for a few times they gave up and started playing. Haha... and... when we leave Pre Rup, one of the girls gave me her drawing of a flower! She is so cute!! I thought I want to buy blacelets from her, but my wallet was in bottom of my bag, so it was too late and our taxi driver stared his car already...


In Banteay Kdei, not girls but two boys were playing under its entrance gate. They were wearing hat made from leaves and showing us it. But they were just playing and not selling blacelets, postcard nor any other souvenirs. So I make them a bit surprised. :p I took their photo with flash! They looked surprised with my flash but later asked me to show their photo to them.


After lunch, we went to one more ruin called Ta Prohm. This temple is famous because trees are destroying the temple. There are some big trees like this photo, and their roots are destroying temple walls or roofs. As a student major in forestry, this temple was quite interesting.

In the evening, we came back to our hotel and had some massage. My mom wanted to try massage in this hotel, so I booked before I go out this morning. There were two session in massage today. First half was warm up my body with hot oil, and second half was stretching whole my body. It was very very nice except my massager told me to take off my clothes without closing a door which is separating my room and my bro's room. He is a BOY even 15 years old and he is my younger brother though... and his massager was a guy. I was hesitating to be naked so my massager closed the door finally.

After very nice massage time, we went out again for shopping and dinner. The taxi driver brought us two souvenir shops and booked restaurant for our dinner. My mom bought 5 silk wrap skirts for US$75 and got one free. Hum, it is not that cheep but quite ok price with US$75 for 6 skirts I think.

We had dinner with Cambodian Dance show tonight. There were many kind of dishes and we could eat anything and as much as we want. But actually, I enjoyed their dancing more than their food. I ate abit only before their dance show, but once they start dancing, I was looking at them without eating. Haha. I like one dance that a boy trying to court a girl best. It was very interesting and I enjoyed alot. :)


After dinner we could take a photo with dancers. The photo taken by my brother.