Angkor Wat Second Day: Kabal Spean and Bantey Srei
Posted by Stuart at 06:22 PM on February 08, 2006On our second day in Cambodia, we took the same tuk-tuk out about 30 kilometers to see the "River of a Thousand Lingas", or Kabal Spean, and then stopped at the tiny but intricately carved sandstone temple called Banteay Srei. The road out to Bantey Srei has been paved, but the remaining distance to the river has not. By the time we arrived, we were coated with a thin layer of red dust.
In the afternoon, we went in the opposite direction to visit three temples near the town of Roluos. These temples date from the 9th Century and therefore pre-date the 10th-13th century temples around Angkor Wat. They weren't as impressive as the Angkor temples, but they were still fun to climb and admire.
After another long day in the tuk-tuk, we again found ourselves at the pool eating snacks and relaxing. We headed out for a little "night-life", which in Siem Reap it consists of drinking beer at foreign-owned pubs surrounded by white people. This area is truly a tourist bubble, like a dirty, run-down Disney World. But unfortunately, we don't have the time on this trip to break outside the bubble and to see what real life is like in Cambodia.
