Around Siem Reap towards the Western Baray

Market in a village west of Siem Reap. This corner is devoted to fish which is traditionally an essential part of the food diet. Supply of fish relies on the Great Lake, or "Tonle Sap" and the lands it periodically floods.



An old lady manufacturing perfume boxes using traditional organic materials (a kind of bambou for the sides of the boxes, an herb as string to assemble the pieces). She says the Khmers have always used natural materials for everything they needed, she doesn't like plastic bags...



The "Western Baray" is one of the four reservoirs which served during the Angkorian period to irrigate the rice fields and thus helped produce at the time several harvests every year. According to what I heard the reservoirs were not used at the same time but one was built after the previous one had silted up ('silt up' = 'envasement' in French). The "Western Baray" was restored as a reservoir whereas the three other barays are silted up and can only be noticed on aerial images or by careful observation on the ground. Here I take a boat with a fellow German tourist to the ruins of the West Mebon, the temple built in the middle of the reservoir as an island. Quel est l'âge du capitaine ?

The second-in-command is not very old either, he can be seen as we approach the West Mebon.


On the island, children sell postcards and other souvenirs, around the thousand year old ruins. An old bonze will read your destiny for you from his set of wooden leafs once you have picked randomly. You are entitled to three tries. If the three of them are bad, you should really consider donating more the pagoda and amending your behaviour...