Cambodia, Angkor Ruins - East Mebon and the Sunset of Pre Rup

 

East Mebon and Pre Rup seem to have a small proportion of the Angkor ruins.

In the middle of the 10th century, King Rajendravarman moved the capital from Angkor to Koh Ker, where he built the city as a national temple in the center of the capital. East Mebon and Prerup were built in the same style under the same regime of the king, and there is no particular difference between them.

Though he ruled the Khmer Kingdom around 25 years, his day was not its prime.

So the size of these temples is not comparable to Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom.

 

Incidentally, I got the most favorite photo here on our trip. I am going to tell the story at the end.

Pre Rup was primarily intended to see the sunset rather than the ruins.

 

Phnom Bakheng and Pre Rup are famous for the wonderful sunset at the Angkor site. We would not visit Phnom Bakhshi in the afternoon of our first day at the Angkor ruins. Because we didn't want to push ourselves.

 

And we heard that Phnom Bakhoun was relatively close to the city and used to be very crowded by tourists who wanted to see sunset.

That's why we chose Pre Rup as the place for the sunset at the Angkor ruins.

 

 

There were many statues of elephants and lions here especially.

 

Now, they revealed the rough body of the stone, but probably they were covered by white lime at that time.

  

 

An elephant must be an animal that overwhelms human by its size itself but it is strangely friendly and easy for me.

Even when they are in a stone statue.

 

 

 

A tower, located by the side of the tallest tree, shows us where is East Mebon.

 

Among the buildings in Pre Rup, there was a tower that could go inside, and the inside was so empty that it created a strange atmosphere.

 

There were nothing much to see here i.e. wall paintings, sculptures, etc., so after we looked around, nothing else to.

The only purpose of the tourists who visited Pre Rup was "Watching Sunset".

 

It's the heaven's will that the sun sets, and what man could do was just waiting for the time. 

 

 

 

Geo and Gowoon were getting tired while they waited until the sunset after they played and took pictures.

 

But we came here earlier than the others... the first row was ours and  we could not give up the priority.

 

 

Finally, the sun started to descend to the horizon.

Trees standing between us and the horizon made a splendid scene.

Another our day at the Angkor ruins was completed with the sunset of Pre Rup.

 

 

Title: Looking back, it was beautiful owing to being with you. I love you!

 
I think this picture and title need a little explanation.

This photo was taken at East Mebon, one of the ruins of Angkor Wat.

At that time, Geo, my son, and  I were walking ahead with talking about something, and my wife and Gowoon, my daughter, followed us slowly.

To my wife's eyes, it was looking good to see father and his son were walking hand in hand while having a happy talk.

When I came back from our trip and saw this photo, I liked it too.

So whenever we see this photo, it takes a trip down memory lane for our previous trip.

There's another story why I titled the photo like that as followings.

In the elementary school where Geo and Gowoon study, they hold a festival every autumn.

During the festival, there's a photo exhibition. We needed to submit a photo for that and we picked the photo but we needed a title for it.

I thought about it for a while ... and the title came up and I talked...

When my wife heard my title, she misunderstood and irritated that "It's beautiful because the two of us, the wife and my daughter, were not in the photo?"

"When the two people in the photo look behind, whom they can see?" I explained my intention.

There are only two people who appear in the picture... but there are two other people in the photo who watched it from behind...

It was more beautiful because the whole family traveled together.

And there are only two people in the picture, but that photo contains all of my family...

Looking back, it was beautiful owing to being with you.