The final temple of today’s trip was the most majestic of all the ones we had seen and definitely my favourite – The Bayon was built during Jayavarman VII ruling (1181-1218) the faces are said to depict the King himself as a Bodhisattra (someone who takes up a course in their life that moves in the direction of Buddha). Cambodia had been Hindu prior to this King. It is a 3 tiered pyramid with faces to each direction on the compass, there are 51 smaller towers each with a face facing main compass points.
The carvings on the outside of the walls were built during the Kings reign depicting stories of the wars, local fisherman they were stunning to see, they stretch 1.2km around the outside of the temple. The inside carvings were created after the Kings death once it went back to a Hindu temple and other than the main faces all carvings of Buddha had been defaced.
Our tuk tuk driver then took us to a local restaurant, outside there were lots of monkeys. For lunch we had Lok Lak a traditional Khmer recipe made with beef, pork or chicken with a lovely sauce with soya sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, chilli, ginger and a few spices I was not sure of. I am also getting a bit partial to the green young coconuts which are full of delicious thirst quenching milk
