The mother of all temples - Angkor Wat

The previous post in this series is here..

We had seen the outside perimeter of the Angkor Wat temple earlier in the morning when watching the sunrise. Instead of going into the temple with the crowd, we had visted Bayon temple, the tomb raider temple, Banteay Kdei temple and Kravan temple and finally made our way to Angkor Wat.

Our driver said we could walk around ourselves and follow the crowd or better take an official guide from the entrance for 15 USD. So he found a guide who was his friend. This guy had practiced English lines with a Boston accent and he recited the lines at the right locations. He happened to be a decent photographer (not the same caliber as our driver but not bad). He told us there are 3 courtyards. The outer which we were in, the middle courtyard and a top courtyard which involved climbing a bunch of steep stairs.

The sun was up and there was no shade once we reached the middle courtyard. So we told our guide “while we have the energy, lets go to the top and do the difficult stuff first”. He was surprised by the request but said “whatever you want!”. So up we went, saw the main shrine first, then we came down and everything else was relatively a piece of cake.

The building below is the library in the background. No books. That building was just amazing. The moat around the temple was equally amazing. 1.3 km by 1.6 km with a 90 feet moat around the entire perimeter that was manually dug and filled !

The four main corridors converging below a square rock that align perfectly on a compass with the main directions.. marvellous engineering from a 1000 years ago!

We walked around the middle courtyard and made our way out through some stores to the parking lot. The guide said “I have to walk back a km to the point where we started our tour. you guys go straight up and turn right and your driver will be waiting for you”.

So in an hour and a half we had seen Angkor Wat Temple instead of 3 hours.

A video highlights reel..

When we came out, our driver asked us if we saw abc, xyz etc.. and we were like “Nope”. He skipped those. Later we had to google the Ramayana mural and dasavatar and figured out he had casually shown us some stuff but we did not go around the middle courtyard completely because we avoided a crowd. I was temporarily upset but got back to reality pretty quickly. We saw as much as we could see at that speed.

It was really hot and humid and I was getting a migraine. We really wanted to eat and get back to the hotel for a nap. We had started at 4:30 AM and it was close to Noon. We had walked miles in each temple. So we told our driver to tell his guide friend to do more coverage next time. He realized we were exhausted and suggested we drink some coconut water (we had wanted it the previous day). The coconut water outside the temple in the shacks was delicious and sweet. Next stop was our hotel. We stopped on the way at the market and while our driver waited we went through the market and shopped for T-shirts and linen pants with elephants on them.

We had some leftover from the breakfast that had been packed in the morning before seeing Angkor Wat. So we skipped lunch and took a nap in the hotel. The headache was getting pretty severe and San was tired as well. We rested for almost 3 hours and it was time to visit Siem Reap by ourselves in the evening.. We were to start at 4:30 AM again the next morning!

A thousand lingas

The previous post in this series is here..

After getting down from the reclining Buddha temple, we had a very short drive to another parking area to see the 1000 linga river.

The kings had carved a 1000 lingas and other reliefs on the rock face after blocking the river and once done, had released the river across these carvings. The idea was that the water was blessed by the gods as it flowed over their reliefs and came down as a waterfall. They also planted herbs alongside so the falling water was medicinal.

The water source is a spring and you can see it gush water out in the video at the end of the post. It was cold fresh spring water at its source!

We walked a good mile along the river till we had crossed most of the lingas and turned back. The crowd was starting to arrive.

The next two photos are Sarak taking our making a selfie and the actual selfie..

We prayed at the little Buddha shrine near the river source (which used to be a Linga at some point back in time) and walked back. The buddhist take over some 700 years ago was apparently violent in some places and peaceful in some places where kings reconciled and built temples for Vishnu and Buddha side by side to appease people. Guess we now know where the “buddha is the 10th avatar of vishnu” logic came from. In Hindu mythology the 10th avatar is yet to arrive (Kalki.. who shows up to cleanse the world and close out things).

The video does a better job for this leg of the trip than the photos..

There was a lot of water flowing in the river which meant our next stop was going to be amazing!

Hiking the Lonely Forest trail in La Honda Open Space Preserve

This weekend, we hiked the La Honda Open space preserve. It is a 30 minute ride from Cupertino and we found parking at the trail head easily. Not many hikers as there was a mist and slight drizzle and a lot of fog on the way.

Reminded me of Windy hill which is also somewhere close by. Weather was good and parts of the hike were in the shade. It actually got quite warm when we went to the base of the vista point.

The normal trail for this place is the Harrington trail. Our friend Deepa, who will henceforth be known as “Lone forest Deepa” made such a pitch for this newly opened trail which would take us to Coho Vista point , that we decided to take a chance and follow her “pdf map” instead of all trails. We went through this trail which had no one on it, to the Madrone trail, then to the starting point for the vista. It was another 1.1 miles one way to the top and we were out of time. So we had chai and came back. Here is a Link to Deepa’s capture of the trail..

It was 9 miles, 1700 feet climb and took us 4 hours including the Chai and photo breaks. We will definitely revisit this in spring when there are flowers. Given this is a new trail we had to watch out for a large stretch. Lots of salamanders and lizards, slugs etc. crossing the trail in the morning.

Here are some pictures..

There were no benches though for a “bench photo”!

Very short video highlight reel..

Definitely recommended for a half day hike on a foggy day! Once you go up it is just beautiful!