All the guidebooks agreed: April is not the best month for tourists to visit Cambodia because of the intense heat. But it was a convenient time for us so we braved the stickiness and headed to Siem Reap regardless. We discovered the guidebooks were right. Leaving our air-conditioned rooms felt like stepping into a sauna … Continue reading A trek to Cambodia’s temples is a spiritual as well as physical journey, says Shelley Bridgeman.
Month: June 2015
Cambodian chicken coconut soup
Ingredients
- 1 cupcoconut cream
- 1small onion, sliced into wedges
- 200 gchicken breast or thigh, sliced into bite-sized pieces
- 1medium potato, peeled, quartered
- 1 sweet potato, peeled, sliced into 3 cm pieces
- 12pea eggplant
- 2 cupscoconut milk
- 1apple eggplant, sliced into 3 cm pieces
- 4snake beans, sliced into 5 cm lengths
- 1 tbsppalm sugar
- 1 tbspfish sauce
- pinch of salt, to season
- Thai basil leaves, to garnish
Red curry paste
- 2 tspshrimp paste
- 2 tbspkroeung
- 2 tbsppalm sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbspfish sauce
- 2 tbspred pepper paste
Instructions
Add all curry paste ingredients to a saucepan and combine.
Now add the coconut cream. Stir then bring to the boil over medium heat. Add onions followed by chicken, reduce heat and simmer whilst stirring for 2 minutes.
Now add potato, sweet potato, pea eggplant and 1…
View original post 63 more words
Banteay Samrae
In guidebooks, Banteay Samray is often called Bantay Samré, the latter being a combination of Khmer transcription and French spelling. Samray is the name of an ethnic group of people in the Phnom Kulen area. The first “a” in “Samray” sounds similar to an “o”.
Banteay Samray was cleared by a French archaeological team of Maurice Glaize in 1930. After extensive restoration work between 1936 and 1944 according to the method called Anastylosis, this temple is one of the finest and most complete Khmer monuments now. Undoubtedly, Banteay Samray in its present condition is Angkor’s most significant flat temple from the Hindu period and the second most important example of the classical style of Angkor Wat, though not of such enormous size as Beng Melea outside Angkor or Phimai in North East Thailand.
Like Angkor Wat, Banteay Samray was obviously dedicated to Vishnu, though no inscription was has yet been…
View original post 487 more words
Pre Rup
Pre Rup
Pre Rup (Khmer: ប្រាសាទប្រែរូប) is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, built as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman and dedicated in 961 or early 962. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, lateriteand sandstone construction.
The temple’s name is a comparatively modern one meaning “turn the body”. This reflects the common belief among Cambodians that funerals were conducted at the temple, with the ashes of the body being ritually rotated in different directions as the service progressed.
Pre Rup was dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, and it is probably located on a former shivaite ashram, built by Yasovarman I in the previous century. Perhaps it was standing at the centre of a new capital city built by Rajendravarman, with the southern dike of East Baray as northern city limit, but nothing of the dwellings survived and this “eastern…
View original post 28 more words