The temple that kept going - Ta Som

Previous post in this series is here..

It was almost 4 PM. We had visited six places since morning. Given our schedule, our driver told us we had three more temples to see before sunset.

The next temple stop was back in the Agnkor complex or close to it. The Ta Som temple built by Jayavarman VII who appeased both Hindus and Buddhists by building temples for both. This one was a Hindu temple and kept going.. from one entrance to the other we walked past at least a dozen doorways and corridors.

At some point when it was a functioning temple, this must have been like the Aavudaiyaar kovil we saw in Tamilnadu two years ago. Just magnificent.

Our drivers artistic photography was taking a hit by now. We were tired. San managed the occasional smile. I could not carry my heavy SLR anymore and took only my iPhone with me. Not a lot of photos but the video tells you everything. Most of the temple was shaded and that was a big plus. We walked all the way to the other end to see the 4 headed Brahma on the gate and walked back.

Our driver had the right concept for this one.. he just had to get more depth to get me in focus instead fo the web.. still I give him A+ for effort..

The video highlight reel.. (the photos really don’t show the grandeur of the temple in terms of distance).

After this we were off to another temple…. the temples, they kept on coming..

Banteay Srei temple - a beauty that was ahead of the big temple by 50 years

The previous post in this series is here..

After our epic romantic lunch, we drove a short distance downhill to reach the Banteay Srei temple. This temple predates the Tanjore big temple by 50 years! It is a Hindu temple with a beautiful moat and carvings with separate shrines for most of the main deities. Sadly the French dismantled most of it and took it to France.. what is left is a fraction of the original temple and is still mind blowing. Humans don’t know how to leave a magnificent creation the way it is. Religiion, language, culture wars take a toll on beauty.

We walked around the temple. It was hot already. The restrooms here were really well maintained. The staff friendly but firm in enforcing people stay within the ropes. Was thinking “isn’t this a too little too late!”

Sarak of course was practicing photography the entire time. I should have spent more time teaching him how to use portrait mode better.. would have had more good pictures. In any case here are the photos..

after we had taken a portrait at every door frame and window frame we told our driver, all the pictures are starting to look the same. So we can finish this location and move. We did get to see the moon rise over the temple top when we went all the way to the back of the temple. It was beautiful!!

after the temple we drove past a market to our next stop. I got fresh roasted local cashews. They were amazing. San got jackfruit which she kept eating through the rest of the trip. I am very allergic to it so when she gets it already in a sealed pouch, I cannot complain. Just told her not to keep it in my suitcase and all will be well. Then she ate fresh palm cakes with jaggery and kept raving about it for the next two days. Apparently this is not something even the locals can make at home. They just buy it in bulk in the market.

The video highlights reel.. the interesting part is the way rice is harvested.. hopefully more desi kids see this so they know how rice gets to their plate the way it does!

Then we went towards our next stop. The sun was up and it was hot and humid. We had already seen 6 locations since 7AM. We were getting tired, but weren’t going to give up. So we tredged on..

A thousand lingas

The previous post in this series is here..

After getting down from the reclining Buddha temple, we had a very short drive to another parking area to see the 1000 linga river.

The kings had carved a 1000 lingas and other reliefs on the rock face after blocking the river and once done, had released the river across these carvings. The idea was that the water was blessed by the gods as it flowed over their reliefs and came down as a waterfall. They also planted herbs alongside so the falling water was medicinal.

The water source is a spring and you can see it gush water out in the video at the end of the post. It was cold fresh spring water at its source!

We walked a good mile along the river till we had crossed most of the lingas and turned back. The crowd was starting to arrive.

The next two photos are Sarak taking our making a selfie and the actual selfie..

We prayed at the little Buddha shrine near the river source (which used to be a Linga at some point back in time) and walked back. The buddhist take over some 700 years ago was apparently violent in some places and peaceful in some places where kings reconciled and built temples for Vishnu and Buddha side by side to appease people. Guess we now know where the “buddha is the 10th avatar of vishnu” logic came from. In Hindu mythology the 10th avatar is yet to arrive (Kalki.. who shows up to cleanse the world and close out things).

The video does a better job for this leg of the trip than the photos..

There was a lot of water flowing in the river which meant our next stop was going to be amazing!