Okay time for a quick lighthearted break from Everything Angkor. Recently we took a trip to a province several hours west of Bangkok called Kanchanaburi. It's home to the River Kwai and it's also a gorgeous area of jungle-y mountains. We took a two hour public bus one afternoon to a famous seven tiered waterfall ... about 15 minutes into it I had to wee like a racehorse and made the bus ... the public bus ... stop for me. I was desparate.

Here I am racing back from the random roadside restaurant I invaded while everyone sits and waits patiently on the bus. You would think all the times my parents refused to stop for the bathroom on our US95 two day roadtrips as a kid I might have developed some kind of Bladder of Steel. But I didn't.

One of the tiers in the seven tiered magical waterfall we were on our way to visit that afternoon. We had a fight all the way up but luckily made up at the sixth tier and so were able to enjoy the seventh tier together in perfect harmony.

I've got ...

... my eye ...

... on you!

Here's a scene from the show Nancy has been performing in all summer at different universities around Bangkok. It was her, another American clown, and a bunch of Thai performance artists including three mimes, three puppeteers and a group of blues musicians. And a very nice flautist. (spelling? pronunciation? She played the flute in other words ...) Here is a photo of them doing God Knows What, but they got filmed by MTV! And Nancy got interviewed! Okay enough fun, back to Hindu mythology and ancient ruins!

This is an amazingly unimpressive shot of the temple Prah Ko, one of three temples I visited in the afternoon of my first day. These three temples are part of the "Rulous" group, named after one of the Khmer Empire's original capital cities. They are worth seeing because they date from the 9th century and are the first examples of the Khmer Empire getting serious about their temple building. This one, Prah Ko, was built by a king to house the ashes of his family and himself (I think). Anyway, it looks crumble-y from far away but is quite elaborate up close ...

A north tower of Prah Ko. Now, I know that this temple is a "funerary temple" but I am unclear if people's ashes are buried in the different towers. There IS a crematory housed within, yum. Here is Chiev with an umbrella because it rained all afternoon. Nothing says fun like exploring decayed civilizations in the rain!

"Small horseman and figures mounted on serpents." That's what my guidebook says is pictured in this lintel over a doorway in one of north towers of Prah Ko. I think that's a "kala" or monster head in the middle ... apparently the Kala was quite famished and asked the Hindu god Vishnu for someone nice to chow down on. Vishnu was angered and, since gods are quite creative and delightfully perverse with their punishments as we of all different religions know very well, he ordered the Kala to eat itself. Except it couldn't very well eat it's own head could it, so that's all that's left. The Kala is supposed to protect temples so you see it a lot over doorways. FTR this is much more impressive to see in real life.

Half an ox facing off with three and a half lions. I wonder what the heck happened to that one lion's face. It's probably in the Met and there's going to be an international scandal over getting it returned.

Prah Ko means "Sacred Ox," and it's no coincidence that the temple is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva who likes to ride oxen. There are two of these kneeling ox statues outside each of Prah Ko's four entrances ... they're waiting for Shiva to come out. They've been waiting a long time I guess. Chiev and I agreed it would be very apropo to get a shot of real cows hanging out with the stone ones, but actually it just looks kind of random and meaningless. Much like my captions.

This is ancient Pali and Chiev my guide could read some of it. But he says it's not really that interesting, just a sort of historical catalogue about the place. Much like my guidebook.

Scary unidentified buggies crawling everywhere.

Gross. Seriously.

Here we go ...

... down the road ...

... to a birthday party! Welcome to Bakong, another temple in the ninth century Roluos group. Like the other two I saw it is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva The Destroyer who, my guidebook says, "is the originator of all performing arts and through the rhythm of his dancing he regulated the destiny of the world." Now THERE'S an argument for arts funding!

This is a common sight in Angkor, the Naga as balustrade. According to my super handy, super free guide book from the library, in Hindu mythology the naga is "a semi-divine being and a serpent-god of the waters who lives in the underworld beneath the earth or in the water." They usually have one long body and many heads, like this one! The Khmer people claim their ancestry from the union of a human and the daughter of a naga king. I think the naga genes have been mostly watered down by this point, at least in the Cambodia people I've met. For example, many of them only have one head. Beyond you can see Bakong's moat.

A local school on the temple's grounds that is run by Buddhist monks. That's it, that's the school, that one room.

Many stairs, a reoccuring theme in Angkor. I guess if you're going to model all of your temples under the rubric of a giant mythical mountain towering above mere mortals things will have to get vertical at some point.

As I trudged up Bakong's ancient stone steps I heard a fantastic shrieking and braying growing ever louder. What creatures could these be I thought, perhaps a Hindu bird beast, the Garuda, come to life? Lord Shiva torturing some hapless Naga that got in his way? Nope, city kids on a class trip to see the crumbling old temples.

Several of these kids totally had Maddox 'dos, including that kid in the front wearing the black tee shirt and olive green backpack. Someone has to stop the Brangelina train, right now, it's barreling towards a cliff and the brakes aren't working. If I remember correctly, the kids are all looking, amazed, at an image of Baby Shiloh Jolie-Pitt hovering in the distance.

A view from the top.

Half a lion is better than no lion at all!

A very cool sandstone thing-y.

Where have these elephants' trunks gone? Please don't tell me someone actually "collected" them. That would be just plain bizarre.

Sanctuary tower and grazing moo cow on Bakong's grounds. From my very limited and vague understanding, these towers, which you find in various forms throughout all of Angkor's temples and palaces were places for monks (Hindu or Buddhist) to sit and meditate. Okay some of them might have been used to bury people's ashes, I am hazy on which are what. However, these towers are almost always orientated to the EAST because East is victory and West is death ... in other words, armies always left cities by the East gates so that they would be victorious in battle. Dead bodies and funerial processions leave by the West gate. Our bed at the bed and breakfast faced towards the east (our feet pointed east) because it's bad luck vice versa. Then you are just plain dead!

Here we have the temple of Lolei, also part of the Roluos group. Actually this is just one of its four towers. Lolei is small but pretty with lots of sandstone carvings ... it's grounds are not so jungly because it shares acreage with a present-day Buddhist temple and monastary, and there is a village nearby full of people who stop by to pay homage to Hinduism and Buddhism even though I guess they are Buddhist on paper. Wait until you see exactly how they "pay homage" -- scroll down for more! Lolei was built at the end of the ninth century and it's pretty intact. My guide Chiev says that's because it's built of brick and people were more careful back in the old days instead of the 12th century when it was all about "quantity, not quality."

Celestial nymphs doing their thing.

Jungle Fever! I like the way this one came out.

There is an operating "modern" Buddhist temple sharing the grounds with the ancient Hindu one (modern as in it's probably several hundred years old). This is a photo of a couple of teenaged monks hanging out. Many people in Cambodia can't afford to send their kids to school -- if there even is an operating school in their area -- so boys can enroll into a monastary and get an education that way. Our guide Chiev did that and was a monk until his mid-twenties. He can read Pali, a 2,000 year old script used in Buddhism and he speaks really good English as well. The girls, of course, don't get the same opportunity. They can always become prostitutes or quietly starve to death I suppose.

Flooded rice paddies nearby. Cambodia gets pretty wet in the wet season.

A present-day shrine on the Lolei temple grounds. Under the Buddha you see three holes STUFFED with locks of black hair. Apparently locals believe that if you come here, ask for something and get it you've got to come back and leave a chunk of hair. Okay I can't even clean hair out of the bathtub drain without gagging so enough. Note the giant wax candle.

Hello and welcome. I will be your guide today to the magnificent temple of Ta Som, built in the 12th century by the Cambodian (or Khmer) King Jayavarman the Seventh in honor of his father. Who I guess was named "Som" because the guidebook says "Ta Som" means "The ancestor Som." While Daddy Som's temple in no way rivals Angkor Wat, the temple Jaya the Seventh built to honor himself, it was the first one I visited on Day One of my trip to Angkor and so it holds a special place in my heart. It also houses what was once a dancing school for temple dancers ... Ta Som doubled as a temple and a religious university. Later you will see a beauteous photo of me in said dancing school, although it looked more like a wall-less, roof-less pile of rocks. Behind me you can see one of the many giant temple-eating trees that have been gobbling up Angkor temples for the past 1,000 years.

Here's a close up of the big scary tree. I read that it is a "ficus tree." You know a tree is old when guidebooks from 15 years ago talk about it.

Rubble Rubble you've torn your dress ...

Rubble Rubble your face is a mess!

Ta Som, like all the other temples built by Jayavarman the Seventh is a Buddhist one. But Jaya the Seventh was super p.c. and wanted to make sure that the Hindus didn't feel left out, so he made a real attempt to combine elements of both religions in his temples, including Ta Som. This is a superfine example of a Hindu Garuda (mythical man bird) holding up a Buddha. But where's Buddha you say? Well the next king was Hindu and not nearly as enlightened as his predecessor and he had all the Buddhist images in these temples removed or defaced. So between missing Buddhas, missing heads sold to antiquities collectors and Western museums and finally bullets and bombings from various modern wars and skirmishes, there's a lot of gaping holes in the Angkor temples. But that's okay, because we have our IMAGINATIONS! And I'm going to imagine that the Buddha statue here was hot pink and encrusted in five carat diamonds because I think that's what Jaya the Seventh would have wanted.

Oops time to fix the roof.

This is a crappy photo but it's a good example of how Jayavarman the Seventh combined elements of both Buddhism and Hinduism in his many temples. This is a statue that is part Naga, part Garuda. The Garuda is this scary-looking man-bird that the Hindu god Vishnu rides around on (the Hindu gods are pretty lazy and are always riding around on some bizarre animal). The Naga is this many-headed serpent in Hindu mythology that was the sworn enemy of the Garuda. The Naga took on special significance, however, in Buddhism, because it is believed that a Naga became a disciple of Buddha and died for him (it's a long story that I have a shaky grasp of so I won't share). Here we see a creature that is part-Naga, part Garuda (the bird-looking thing in the middle ... around it are fanning the heads of the Naga). It's like the Naga is hugging the Garuda! Awww I guess the Khmer Empire was a regular Religious Love Fest back in the 12th century!

Another post-Religious Love Fest attempt to get rid of Buddhism. This was originally a carving of a Buddha in Ta Som but someone later drew a little beard on him so he would look like the Hindu god Shiva, who is often depicted with a beard. I thought this was frickin' hilarious, someone literally scrawled a beard and moustache onto Buddha like a thousand years ago.

Throughout the Angkor temples you see lots of these lovely dancing ladies, called Apsaras. In Hindu mythology they are celestial dancing nymphs ... again, Jayavarman the Seventh was a big ol' Buddhist but he was also intent on giving props to Hinduism ... in many reliefs in the temples he built you see little Apsaras flying about Buddha (or what remain of the Buddhas after the next king defaced them all) celebrating him. Above the dancing apsaras in this photo (they are above a doorway) you can see the empty spaces that used to house little sitting Buddhas.

Those Apsaras could learn a lesson or two from me I think.

Since Cambodians do not really view their religion -- a healthy mix of Hinduism, Buddhism and animism, to name a few! -- as officially dead, preserved and ready for museum display many of them still come to worhsip at various temples in the Angkor complex. Like Thailand, Cambodia sees their King (they still have one) as partly divine and by extension the King's family. Here is an engraving that looks like an Apsara but is either one of Jayavarman the Seventh's two concubines or of his mother ... either which, she too is divine so locals come to pray to her and leave offerings ... including the usual incense and lotus flowers, but they ALSO leave piles of cigarettes and betel nuts (complete with leaves to wrap them in) so she can chew and get high.

Another Apsara aka Queen Mother aka Goddess tucked away in a hard to find pile of rubble. She too gets lot of booty left for her enjoyment ...

Here's a close up ... nicotine and carcinogenic, intoxicating nuts ... who said the gods don't know how to pah-tay?!!

One of Ta Som's two libraries. I didn't notice any books, maybe they went digital.

I'm not sure if this is a Garuda or an Apsara, but luckily it didn't blink when I took the photo.

It's hard to keep an eye on things when you have no head. Two stone guards protecting an entrance to Ta Som!

Cute lions! AND they are both in one piece. Okay the steps don't actually go anywhere, but the lions both have their heads on, and that is something in Angkor!