Cambodia Archives | Travellenz

Cambodia Travel Diaries – Angkor Wat – A Prelude

TravelLenz — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 16:38:06 +0000

I was standing in a forest, where a deserted temple stood, somewhere in the abandoned city of Angkor. I almost felt like a lost explorer – like Indiana Jones – stumbling upon a hidden city. Then I tried to clamber on top of a few fallen stone blocks to get to an arched doorway. Once [...]

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Beng Mealea temple – Lost in the wilderness

TravelLenz — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 18:08:25 +0000

With Koh Ker behind us, Tes sped us to the final stop of our Angkor exploration – Beng Mealea. It’s a 58 km drive that gives views of the distant Phnom Kulen mountains that was once Mahendraparvata, the first capital of the Angkor civilisation. Read more: Beyond Angkor – Cambodia’s hidden temples at Koh Ker. [...]

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Exploring Pub Street and Night Market, Siem Reap

TravelLenz — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 02:27:44 +0000

Once the sun is down and the Angkor temples close for the day, the Siem Reap town gets ready to welcome the templed out tourists. The streets come to life with neon lights, music, and food. And tourists head for the markets, the restaurants and the pubs at Pub Street and Night Market, Siem Reap. [...]

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Beyond Angkor – Cambodia’s hidden temples at Koh Ker

TravelLenz — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 12:23:12 +0000

It’s a Sunday. Not that it made any difference to life. We were already on vacation and this was our last full day in Cambodia. Tomorrow is when we catch a morning flight back to Bangkok and then proceed back home to Bangalore. For now, we were ready to explore Angkor’s relatively further off temples [...]

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Phnom Bakheng – and a crowded sunset

TravelLenz — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 14:22:44 +0000

Come evening and all the roads from the Angkor complex lead to Phnom Bakheng hill. Why? Well, this is where you get the most amazing views of the setting sun against the stunning backdrop of the Angkor Wat ruins. And did we mention that this is one of the most crowded temple complexes around sundown? [...]

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Neak Pean – entwined Nagas and an island temple

TravelLenz — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 07:15:59 +0000

In the last two days, we had climbed over a number of laterite steps, sandstone platforms and posed against a few apsaras. What we were about to visit was entirely different from what we had seen these two days. Neak Pean is an artificial island temple situated in the middle of the Northern Baray. The [...]

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Ta Som and the tree-framed eastern gopura

TravelLenz — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 13:39:40 +0000

The Khmer temple of Ta Som was relatively small when compared to the many other temples built under Jayavarman’s reign. Tes mentioned that it was frequently skipped by tourists who were more interested in visiting the better-known sites in the complex. Good for us, when we got to the temple from East Mebon, there were [...]

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East Mebon and the guardian elephants

TravelLenz — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 13:47:52 +0000

From Banteay Samre, a short drive took us to the mountain temple of East Mebon. It sits in the midst of an artificial reservoir – East Baray – built to provide water to the city. From a distance we could make out that East Mebon was a large temple, rising to three levels and crowned [...]

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Banteay Samre – The fortress and the cucumber King

TravelLenz — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 14:16:19 +0000

With its tall and windowless laterite walls, the Banteay Samre temple looked more like a fortress from outside. An isolated fortress for that matter. Banteay means ‘fortress’ and Samre refers to an ethnic tribe who inhabited the regions at the base of Phnom Kulen mountain. We were reminded of the huge temple walls in central and [...]

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Preah Dak – The palm jaggery village in Angkor

TravelLenz — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 09:54:04 +0000

Palm jaggery production is one of the main occupations for a livelihood in Cambodia. As we drove down from Banteay Srei to our next destination, Tes stopped at Preah Dak, a typical Cambodian village. Here, we got to see how the locals made palm jaggery. Finding palm jaggery at Preah Dak Tapping palm sap to [...]

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Banteay Srei – The red citadel of women

TravelLenz — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 11:55:35 +0000

While many of the Angkorian temples begin to look almost the same after you’ve spent two days shuttling from one to another, there is one temple that stands out in more than one way. Located about 20 odd kilometres away from the Angkor Wat complex, Banteay Srei, even with its out of the way location [...]

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