Escaping the crowds - échapper à la foule!

In English below!

Aujourd'hui je suis partie pour un tour avec guide pour "échapper à la foule" - bonne idée car en semaine la ville est bruyante et bondée de monde.

D'abord un petit arret au bord de la route pour "sticky rice" - traduit comme "riz qui colle" qui est cuit sur un barbecue dans un bout de bamboo avec quelques morceaux de mangue et quelques lentilles de ??? et un peu de sucre.  Délicieux!

Sticky rice cooked in a bit of bamboo on a barbecue

Premier temple: Bakong Temple, construit à la fin du 9ème siècle, avec ses 2 crématorians, un pour les hommes et l'autre pour les femmes.

2 cremetorians

Bakong Temple

Le prochain temple était vraiment incroyable, il a éte repris par la jungle et étranglé par les racines des arbres!  Un endroit magique, pas possible de le restorer, mais avec un vrai sentiment d'age!  (presque mille ans!)

Beng Mealea - work in progress!

Beng Mealea

Beng Mealea

Beng Mealea

some roots are more organised!

2 beautiful children to add to the art of nature

Le troisième temple était  vraiment le bijou de la journée: Banteay Srei - qui veut dire en Khmer "citadelle des femmes" car ils croient que les reliefs sont tellement détaillés que seulement les femmes auraient pu les faire!

Banteay Srei

OK so the hat is ugly but it was 36°c!

Banteay Srei monkeys

This "Shiva" is 8cm high!!

OK, so here is the ENglish version, even though no one complained!  Perhaps no one is reading it!  I went on a guided tour called "escaping the crowds" which seemed a great idea as during the week the town is really busy and noisy and I needed to get away from it all!
First stop was a stall on the side of the road selling "sticky rice" which is a mixture of rice, mangoes and some sort of lentil cooked in a tube of bamboo on a barbecue.... it's really yummy!
First temple stop was Bakong Temple built at the end of the 9th Century with 2 crematorians, one for the men and one for the women.
The second temple was really incredible.  Beng Mealea temple has been completely taken over by the jungle and the tree roots that are gradually strangling the stones!

Quite an amazingly magical place, impossible to restore but it had a real feeling of age (!) almost a thousand years old!
The third temple  was really the "jewel of Khmer art" of the afternoon.  Banteay Srei which means in Khmer "Citadel of women" as they believed that the reliefs were so detailed that only women could have carved them!