Cambodia Yong - The Last Crusade

The weather on our last day was nice. The sky was clear. A good opportunity to take pictures. After reading a photography book, I get to know the best time to take scenery photo with sun is not only reserved for sunrise but also sunset. This timing is called golden hour to photographer. Actually sunset view is quite same with sunrise. The only difference is both are moving the opposite direction.

Just like a clock moving clockwise stops at 12 besides a clock moving anti-clockwise that happens to stop at 12 too. Both are showing 12. If you happen to glimpse the clocks at that moment, you might not notice any differences. Same concept applies to the sun. There will be a time where the sun pauses and give you the same feel for sunrise and sunset. It’s hard to differentiate in photo really. So, why am I waking up at 4.45am in the morning to go to Angkor Wat again to take the sunrise photo?!

I’ve learnt some traits from a professional photographer on adjusting different settings when taking photos. Aperture, macro mode, and also exposure. Here at Cambodia you get to learn different things in the art of taking pictures. Funny posing, jumping in the air, weird type of framing, use of reflection on any reflecting material and also shooting from different angle.

After a brief coffee break at local mamak inside the park, we went for a lighter trip. Prasat Kravan. This is by far the simplest yet the cosiest temple I’ve visited in Cambodia. It looks like the Selangor Gate at Federal Highway only. Such a small temple yet my tour guide can spend 40 minutes describing the carving on the wall yet again. All I can say is he performed his duty marvellously. If Cambodia manages to uncover another archaeological site, the national archaeologist should find him to decode all the carving on that wall.

Driving our way to the next location was East Mebon, a large temple-mountain-like ruin, rising three levels and crowned by five towers. I found it looks like Pre Rup in terms of construction material. When you come to this stage, the hype surrounding these temples petered out. You might wonder what the next stage is. Shave your head and become monk/ nun here.

Each king just wants to leave a legacy behind by building something. A resemblance of what is happening nowadays. Nobody will remember or even appreciate the one who built the Petronas Twin Tower. You pick someone on the street and ask who built the world tallest “twin” tower. I’m sure 99% will say, “Mahathir?” Sorry engineer. Like how Tony Rich Project sings, “Nobody knows it but me.”

We decided that on our last day, we will be going to visit temples which are away from the heart of the Angkor Park. Because, in order to get to our second last temple, Banteay Srey which lies 38 km from Siem Reap, it requires extra travel time. Drivers usually charge a fee in addition to their normal daily charge for this trip. Along our way, we stopped some shack to get ourself some local souvenir. Jaggery. Not Mick Jagger. Unrefined brown sugar made from palm sap. Beforehand, our tour guide advised us normally the price would be 6 sticks per USD. Hey, you are travelling with girls. We (basically, it excludes me) opened the haggling with initial price of 8 sticks per USD! I saw the raised eyebrow from my tour guide. The poor owner shook their head in disapproval. And our guide in dismay! I was thinking it was more in a state of disbelief.

Banteay Srey loosely translates to ‘citadel of the women,’ but this is a modern appellation that probably refers to the delicate beauty of the carvings. We were told that all the carvings were done by female sculptors. This is because woman is much neater and tidier in their work compared to their male counterpart. The walls are densely covered with some of the most beautiful, deep and intricate carvings of any Angkorian temple. Getting here at noon is not a good idea. The intense heat ultimately drained you up that your feet could barely lift you away from shades. You could easily lose a few gallon of water if not well-prepared. Luckily with our tour guide who constantly monitors our water supply, we were kept away from dehydration all the time. There is people selling water but when you are desperate, scrupulous traders might take advantage of your suffering. Don’t be surprise a local brand mineral water might cost you the same price of an Evian drink.

Our last crusade is located far away and very lightly-visited area, giving a real adventurous, ‘lost temple’ feel. Beng Melea is located 63km east of town and it took us around 1 -1.5 hours on bumpy and graded dirt road to get us there. This is really a sprawling jungle temple covering over one square kilometer. The regular Angkor Wat admission ticket is not applicable here but there is a separate USD5 entrance fee. Our tour guide once again had a sudden urge to tell us grandmother story yet again and it dragged us quite late in the evening before we started venturing in there. Ray of light was scarce on certain spot.

That certainly gave us that chill feeling. Anyhow, you will find this temple slightly different from the rest in the sense that it is located inside a village. Kids were seen treating this place as their playground. They were thrilled to discover other “species” that are so keen on their playground that they will follow and show you the way. The center of the temple had collapsed and you might need all the hiking skill to get up there. Don’t worry, these barefooted kids will gladly show you around and put shame on your so-called anti-slip hiking shoes that fail to perform so miserably on moss-covered stone.

Well, that probably sums up my adventure in Cambodia. Two of my team members continued their journey to Phnom Penh while we left from we came. This Angkor Wat experience is truly a nice one. Well-planned. Just nice in terms of the total number of people. Budget-wised. Surrounded by 5 girls. What can I say more?