Our afternoon jaunt it south to the Roluos group of temples, the earliest in the area, built in the late 9th century. There is still some lovely filigree carving, and stucco that has survived over the bricks, which we are seeing for the first time. It's a special time at the Lolei teple, largely under reconstruction. This is now a holy Buddhist temple especially valued by Buddhists.
Savuth arranges for a monk to perform a water blessing on us all. We kneel before the lama, being careful not to point the soles of our feet towards him or Buddha. After some paper money is placed in the copper bowl in front of him, he flicks water from another bowl with a floppy brush to gently land on us, while singing an incantation for our wellbeing and good health. We all need it!
Two older ladies sit at the side, smiling and watching our ceremony.
Afterwards the monk ties a red cotton bracelet around each of us, first spraying it with a fragrant floral spray. We must keep this on for at least a week for the blessing to be active. Such a lovely thought! As he ties Ted's (who had great difficulty trying to kneel on that new knee!) the young monk says a few kind words in Englsh, so he is obviously somewhat proficient in our language.
We also visit the small temple of Preah Ko, a lovely pink faced temple, sacred to the bull, where three very well preserved bulls keep guard. We finally get a photo of the 3 of us to send to Bruce. And to keep for a fond memory of our time with Savuth.
The village has a local weaving group and pottery group where we see simple local products. Then last we visit the impressive Bakong, dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, also reminiscent of Mount Meru, with 12 elephants at each corner of the 4 stage temple of brick towers and stucco again. Ted insists on climbing to the top despite the heat and we do it in stages, as the steps are also deep.
We have certainly had full value from our $40 pass and also the additional passes for $15 to visit some of the farther sites.
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