Bakong Temple

This is another temple of the Roluos group temples, the Bakong temple.  And yeah, most of them are in the middle of nowhere so you really need to walk quite a bit of distance before you reach the temple. 

And more walking. 

Apparently this is a characteristic statue / symbol in the temples, a seven-headed beast, unfortunately 2 of the heads were damaged. 

Preah Ko temple, breathtakingly beautiful. 

This guy makes a living by carving Buddha faces or Indian gods on ceramic/stone?  Pretty cool. 

Look at those intricate carvings. 

Ok, moving towards the temple. 

And up we hike.  Don’t be fooled by the steps you see from the photos, they are actually very steep, which makes me wonder wasn’t it difficult for the people who built all of these to walk up and down the stairs on a daily basis?  I mean it was rather ok for me but I see some of the tourists were struggling when walking up the stairs. 

I’m really proud of this shot? Cause it looks quite postcard worthy :D 

I can’t remember if all these statues are supposed to be the guardians of the temples or just decorations (Got mixed up with gargoyles lol)

I really hope the government can speed up their process of restoring the temples.  

The temples are full of kids that beg for food or money from the tourists, and some of them sell postcards and tiny gifts as well, and if you were to buy from one of them, the others will come and beg you to buy from them as well, which is really sad because you can’t possibly buy from all of them.  So my mum gave them biscuits and sweets that she always carry around in her bag. 

Another shot of the Bakong temple.

And this is the Lolei temple which was under restoration when we were there. 

Just tried printing out the temple photos on photo paper and it does not look as nice as how it is on my laptop as I don’t use the original ink on my printer.  Oh well :/