buddha

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The magnificent Bayon temple at sunrise

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When Brahma or Buddha or Shiva or Vishnu closes one door, he opens another..

The previous post in this series is here..

Our driver was good. He took us super fast to the south gate at Angkor Thom complex to see the sunrise above the forest and hit the statutes at the gate. It was an amazing experience. Got a lot of good pictures and got a timelapse of the sun coming up above the forest!

Then there was the short drive to Bayon temple. Every tower had faces of buddha on all four sides and there were 50+ towers. What a temple. What magnificence. There were buddhist monks still praying early in the morning.

Happy with the pictures but you have to be there to see it in all its grandeur. There is also a set of pictures of San that made my day while editing.. it reminded me of the little one from an earlier time..

The photo gallery in portrait format..

landscape gallery

A video highlights reel of this part of the trip..

Thoroughly enjoyed the sunrise over the forest and the light show in Bayon temple.. It was still early morning and our driver said it was time to go visit one more major temple in the area before the crowds moved in, and then we could go to Angkor Wat temple for the tour.

He said it would be “better” and that piqued our interest.. Better than this?! That in the next post.. There are 500+ photos from that stop.. will work on them tomorrow.

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Neak Poan temple - An ancient hospital

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The previous post in this series is here..

After walking through the Ta Som temple, our next stop was a short drive away. The Neak Poan temple.. I remember it being referred to as the Prasad temple! The temple itself is a small shrine on a side hillock. What is spectacular about this is the access to get to the temple across a bridge. The landscape with lotus everywhere is surreal. It was hot and humid and I was told not to stop for photos by my darling wife. Neither one of us had caps and the sun was really beating down on us.

Once we walked past the bridge, we saw what appeared to be a submerged temple. Turns out there are four pools on four sides of the tower and each had different medicines in it that were connected to earth, wind, fire and water and depending on the ailments, folks would have to take a dip in different pool(s). There were some high profile politicians with security forces visiting this temple to light agarbaththis.. so we walked around the pools real fast and got out before any further jam.

Our driver told us that he would wait at the parking lot nearby. When we came out it took us some time to find him. Then we told him that we needed a chai break. There were a few dhaba looking restaurants in the parking lot. So he managed to get hot water in one of those places. We paid them 2 bucks for the hot water and cups and they were happy to watch us make ginger tea and drink. Everyone at the restaurant spoke fluent English! There was a rooster making a racket where we were drinking tea that made this session memorable..

Here is a video highlight reel..

we had no clue that the temple was the four pools when walking through. There were no boards to explain this at the temple or we missed it! Had to come back to the hotel to wiki and understand what it was all about..

The reflections of the towers in the four pools were amazing.. I love reflections. got a lot of nice photos..

After chai we were recharged. So we told Saruk we were ready for the next temple…

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Finally a live temple- Wat Preah Ang Thom Buddha

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Previous post in this Thanksgiving 2025 trip is here..

We had driven more than 75km from our hotel to get to the Kulen mountain area. This area was an old settlement from which the kings came down to set up Angkor Wat.

Our first stop in this hill was the reclining buddha temple, the largest such buddha in Cambodia. The head of VIshnu may have been replaced with a head of Buddha. The temple on the rock on top of a hill is impressive and it was good that there are still prayers going on.

A note about this drive. Kulen mountain is where the buddha is and it is a long drive up a windy road and cars drive slowly to be safe. One good thing about Cambodia compared to India is that the temples may be in ruins, but the restrooms near the ticket counters are extremely well maintained. Clean and constantly cleaned. So use the restrooms in the Angkor wat complex before driving up!

They are continuing to piece together history at this site. The steps to go up are beautiful as are the stores. We got to pray, make wishes by ringing the bell and also eat some kuzhi paniyaaram. Here are the photos.. on the way to this area we did stop by to see the place where they quarried the stones to build temples. We also got to see how the villagers were drying the rice to store.. they had just started the harvest! The first photo is from the quarry! There were some interesting cats. GIven our little one loves cats, I am now taking “Catraits” wherever we go..

More photos..

and a video highlights reel..

Again we beat the buses. We walked out when two big buses showed up! It was time to drive to the next stop..

Copyright © 2012, Sundar Narayanan. All rights reserved.