will i am's delayed diary

The third and last day of our temple crawl left us with a choice of whether to visit Tonle Sap Lake or not. The Roluos Group of temples was very near the largest fresh water lake of South East Asia so Nat asked us if we would like a visit. After some deliberation, KH and I decided not to go for it. Our first stop was Preah Ko, the first temple built in the ancient city of Hariharalaya. Built in the 9th century, its older than all the other temples that we had seen in the last two days. Preah Ko means Temple of Sacred Bull and rightly so with three statues of Nandi, Shiva's sacred mount facing three of main brick towers. Behind those three towers are another three smaller towers. Like all the older temples, this temple had decorations using stucco. Although old, it had beautiful sandstone carvings on the lintels. Although small, it was beautiful to look at. Second temple of the day was Bakong, the first temple mountain of sandstone built by Indravarman I. It is said to b...

On the second day of our temple run, we started at the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom. This gate is the fifth gate into Angkor Thom in addition to those at the four compass points. Its identical to the other gates, but moss covering the face towers give it a whole different kind of look. The first temple of the morning was Preah Khan which translates to "Royal Sword". Another project of Jayavarman VII, but dedicated to his father instead. Much of the temple was not restored leaving it with touch of vegetation and trees among the structures as in Ta Promh. Large Spung trees embrace the stone, shining silver in the sunlight. The temple is flat with galleries all around and a stupa in the middle. Strangely, it had a two-storey building with round columns ( so far we had only seen angular columns and single storey buildings ) with an unknown purpose. Nat guessed that it housed the "Royal Sword". It also had dvarapalas guardians and garudas holding nagas . And there...