The description in the tour guide for today says: venture to remote Boeng Mealea and Banteay Srei. Visit a landmine museum and a village specialising in making palm sugar.
This is quite brief and doesn’t do the day justice, the outer temples are perhaps the most spectacular that we saw. The first stop though was a local market at Dom Deak, this is a true locals market and not setup up as a tourist stop. We got to see the local butcher, fish monger and hairdresser operating alongside each other while the children played in between.
From here we boarded the bus again and headed on to Boeng Mealea Temple. This was apparently a prototype for Angkor Wat, it’s now mostly ruins, overgrown with trees that make it look very eerie from certain angles. It was a Khmer Rouge stronghold during Cambodia’s civil war, quite isolated and heavily mined. The mines are now mostly removed although there are still some 300 people a year killed or injured by mines left over from the war. Raised wooden platforms and walkways give you a birds eye perspective of the temple and allow you to walk around in relative ease.
The children are just captivating, they have such amazing smiles.
The girls just had to get in on the whole posed photo situation….
From here we headed on to Banteay Srei, a magnificent structure that uses pink sandstone, the name means ‘Citadel of the Women’. This is an exquisite temple with the most intricate carvings of any we saw. This was our last temple and I think Adam and the crew at Insider Journey’s saved the best till last.
Our local guide Dar Ling was brilliant.
I see a tattoo design in here somewhere