Monday, April 9, 2007





These two temples were built in the middle of artificial lakes. The sister I previously referred to as invisible made a surprise appearance to complain that my directions, like the top left photo, bear no resemblance to where the photo actually is. And I agree with that, since the photos are in completely different locations each time I look at the blog on a different computer. So I'm going to stop that, and also stop referring to her as the invisible one, especially because Pomme is pretty close to invisible these days. Back to blogging, the one photo that I would have previously described as top left but now will describe as the round thing in the grass field, is Neak Pean. This was a smallish lake and it is filled with water in the rainy season. In the dry season, it loses its appeal and just looks like a round thing in a grass field. Anyway, this was built as a hospital. Actually the lake was the hospital, not the building, since sick people were cured by being dipped in the water, which is one way to keep health care costs down. The other two photos are of East Mebon. A few entries ago I showed you the big lake with a dock for the king, which was the West lake. The East Mebon temple was built in the middle of the East Lake, and reachable only by boat. The lake has long since dried up and is now rice fields.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm confused by the scale...the temple in the middle of the round thing (the lake) looks to be about 5 feet tall in an artificial lake that's about 20 feet wide (more than a fountain than a temple). i'm guessing that i'm wrong, but, how big is it?

Somchai and Brian said...

You're not far off, it's probably twice the size you're thinking. There are two real artificial lakes in Siam Reap,which are gigantic, but this one is more of a pool. Remember this pool was for sick people to bathe in to get better, so probably didn't want to make it a giant body of water. But overall pretty unimpressive, at least in the dry season.