Rural Angkor

Siem Reap, Cambodia, has plenty of luxury hotels and upscale restaurants to accommodate well-heeled foreign tourists, but the town of 175,000 and the villages in the surrounding area deliver a distinctly rural experience.

You can still get all the fixin's for a feast at Siem Reap's Old Market.

The moto-remork (a.k.a. tuk-tuk)  provides inexpensive, reliable transportation for tourists and locals.

But the bicycle remains an important work-horse. 

Being soft foreign tourists, however, we hired an air-conditioned car to take us into the country for a peek at
the Beng Melea temple. 

Along the way, we stopped for a roadside snack called ja bamboo.

The vendor stuffs a combo of coconut sticky rice and black beans into bamboo sticks and then roasts them.
Just peel back the bamboo and voila! -- a sweet and savory, protein-packed snack that will provide hours of
fun for the kids. Two sticks for a dollar.

Restoration has been a slow-go at the Beng Melea temple. This is the main gate. You can get in
around the side, but it's a fairly rough experience.

After stumbling among the ruins, the reward is a fine lunch of wild boar, vegetables and rice in the
tidy nearby village

Back in town, you might like to end the day in reflection along the banks of the Siem Reap River.

Revenge of the trees

Here's what happens when you don't clean out your gutters for several hundred years. 

Ta Prohm

Ta Som

Ta Som

Ta Prohm

Angkor artwork

From Angkor Wat.

Virtually anything that could be carted out of the Angkor monuments has been taken by invading armies and relic thieves, but there was no way for them to make off with the bas reliefs and some of the largest statues. The No. 1 recurring image is that of the apsara dancers. Thousands of them line the walls and doorways of every temple. You can see the faces, bodies and poses change slightly over the centuries and across the sites, but this Khmer classical dance is still performed today much as it was hundreds of years ago despite the trouncing it took first by the Siamese and later the Khmer Rouge.

From Preah Kahn

From Angkor Wat.

It wasn't all dance and merriment. There are battle scenes galore, nearly all from the Sanskrit epic "Ramayana." The picture below is from Angkor Wat and stars Hanuman, the great monkey-faced Hindu deity leading his forest-dwelling monkey army against the demon king Ravana, who has kidnapped his man Rama's girl Sita.

From Angkor Wat.

The epic length of the epic Ramayana... fade to black.

Terrace of the Elephants at Angkor Thom.

Unexplained dinosaur on a lintel at Ta Prohm.

One of about two dozen figures lining the bridge across the moat in front of Ta Som. It depicts the Hindu creation myth "Churning of the Sea of Milk" in which the bad gods battle the good gods and whip the cosmos into the froth of the Milky Way. 

Elephant dating from 950 A.D. stands guard above the unfinished temple known as the Eastern Mebon.

Astonishing (really!) Angkor

     Our visit last week to Siem Reap, Cambodia, and exploration of the Angkor temples was hands-down the most satisfying trip we've taken since moving to Singapore. The architectural legacy left behind by the Angkorian civilization (802-1432) is truly astonishing and the hospitality of the people living there today is utterly genuine, at times disarmingly so. One night after dinner at a local eatery, there wasn't a taxi in sight. One of the of the waiters jumped on his motorcycle, rode into the center of town and fetched a tuk-tuk for us. Then he paid our fare back to the hotel!

One of the hundreds of faces keeping an eye on you at Bayon Temple in Ankgor Thom.

     If you've heard of anything about Angkor it would be Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. But there are dozens of other major wats (temples) in the area and hundreds of smaller ones. For me, Bayon stole the show. All the faces portray one man, King Jayavarman VII (1125-1200), possibly the greatest of all the Angkor kings and surely the most industrious. These guys were Hindus back in the day, but Buddhism made solid headway. Our guide said today's Cambodians view them as one religion. It seemed the same way in Thailand.

Main entrance to Bayon Temple.

     Bayon is located in the center or Angkor Thom, which was the main palace or castle for Jayavarman VII. Some claim that during his reign Angkor became the world's largest pre-industrial city. From the size of this place, you've got to think that most Angkorian's were employed building temples. The others undoubtedly concentrated on farming or fighting the of Chams of today's southern Vietnam or the Siamese from today's Thailand. Fun fact: Siem Reap translates roughly into "defeat of Siam."
     Still, you can't go to the Angkor Archaeological Park and not come back with a boat-load of Angkor Wat photos. I will show you three. 

The less crowded and less photographed south side of Angkor Wat, built by Suryavarman II (1112-1152).

View from the top of the center tower at Angkor Wat -- the one in the middle above. You can see the main

entrance in the distance. It was only about 104 degrees that day. 

Now you have to climb back down.

     So, gentle reader, I'm going to declare it too hot to go on today. Check back tomorrow and over the course of the next few days for dazzling Hindu artwork, fascinating Siem Reap street scenes and the ultimate warning to clean out your home's gutters at least once a year. I promise to keep them short. You can decide if they're sweet.

One last benign glare from Jayavarman VII for the road.

Pizza Hut helps usher in Lunar New Year

     The Year of the Dragon is fast approaching and we were overwhelmed by endless joy when we received Pizza Hut's flyer announcing the limited availability of Fortune Bags Pizza.  
    Not only does every slice hold two money bags (shrimp dumplings), but it's also topped with "delicious oriental sauce, diced BBQ chicken, sliced mushrooms, pineapple chunks and capped with a sprinkling of chicken floss." 
     Actually, it sounds pretty decent, though the chicken floss seems a little over the top.
     Don't like pizza? You can always order the Happiness Delight Meal. For S$15.50, you get one Orange Zest Duck leg with mashed potatoes and vegetables. You also get a cup of soup and a drink like a Berri Sparkle or a Passion Grapefruit Fizz. 
     Does home office know about this? Would the suits in Plano, Texas, really sanction putting Tofu Seafood Salad on their menu? Must be some kind of Asian knock-off. Check it out at www.pizzahut.com.sg.
     Still scratching your head about chicken floss? Think sweet-and-salty saw dust.

The road to Bali

Unlike Bob and Bing, we weren't waylaid in our pajamas on our trip to Bali. It was an easy 2-1/2 hour flight from Singapore. That's where the road bogged down. Like so many places in southeast Asia, Bali is plagued by too many cars and too few roads. To see any of its exotic sights takes a fair amount of backseat commitment. We devoted roughly a day-and-a-half of our four-day weekend to the roads to Bali's sites. Here are the top three we saw:

1. Tanah Lot

A 15th century pilgrimage temple that visitors can walk to during low tide. As you can see, we made our pilgrimage at high tide. The upside was a low tourist presence.

Side note: The tropical sun was brutal that day, but luckily the refreshment stand was prepared with plenty of water, juice, soda and durian.


2. Batur volcano

The volcano is classified "mildly explosive." The three cones made for interesting viewing during lunch at the Lake View Hotel. What lake? 

Lake Batur, Bali's largest lake, is to the right of the peaks (or to the left I suppose, depending on where you might be having lunch) and was formed by a volcanic crater about 25,000 years ago.

3. Rice terraces

Not much to say other than they're exotic to look at and ponder how some of them have been cultivated continuously for hundreds of years. The origins of the technique in Bali date to the 8th century.

Photo note: "The Road to Bali" image with Bob, Bing and Dorothy is provided courtesy of Wikipedia.

Mmmm... doughnuts

     Ever since I was in Johor Bahru a couple of months ago, I have been borderline obsessed with the doughnuts I bought from a little old lady in an alley near the train station as I was rushing to catch the train back to Singapore. I didn't think to take a picture. I didn't know they would be so good and so different. 
     Last week, I found a source for my obsession in Geylang Serai, which is considered the Malay district of Singapore. In this part of town you can find all-manner of Muslim food, which is how Malaysian and Indonesian food stalls usually identify themselves unlike most cuisines that are more nationalistic about it.

Would Homer approve?

     As you can see in this picture, they look pretty similar to doughnuts you might buy at a Winchell's or Dunkin' Donuts. The one on the left has the texture of a classic cake doughnut except it's made with all-purpose flour and yams. The only sweetness in this doughnut is supplied by the most excellent coating of sugar applied the moment they come out of the oil-filled wok. Pretty standard stuff.
     The doughnut on the right is the one I fell in love with in JB. There's nothing cake-like about it. The outside is deep-fried and crispy and covered in sugar just the way you'd want it. But the inside -- the less-cooked part of the doughball -- is dense and chewy. I believe it's made of rice-flour and coconut. It might also include tapioca. I'm not sure.  

Mmmmm...

     This gooey gem was labeled Getas Getas. The other more typical doughnut was Kueh Keria. Kueh is kind of a universal Malay word for cakes, cookies or puddings. There seems to be no English translation for Getas. I have since corresponded with the operator of a cooking school in Singapore who said that Getas Getas is "a very traditional kueh from my childhood days that is uncommon these days. I will keep you posted when I teach it in a class." 

     And I will keep you posted when I learn how to make them. I will include a picture of myself weighing 400 pounds (181 kilograms).

Post Script
     Today is a national holiday in Singapore to celebrate Deepavali, the festival of lights that marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year. 

Taken last year on Serangoon Road, the main drag through Little India, lit up for Deepavali (a.k.a. 
Diwali, Dewali, Divali, Dipotsavi, Dipapratipad, Depawali, Dipavali -- depending on the country).