Wat now?

We were on a wat tour today. We are staying in the Wat Damnak neighborhood and happen to be around the corner from the temple. We started there and walked the grounds. I learned that the temple grounds have a rich history. The land first housed the royal residence in the early 1900’s. When the king’s palace was relocated, it became a Buddhist monastery. It was active until the Khmer Rouge used it as a military base in the mid-70’s. Wat Damnak has been a teaching monastery since the 2000’s, not just for monks, but we also saw a primary school on the grounds.

The temple complex has some beautiful buildings and artwork. There is a tall, golden Buddha statue in the courtyard that glimmers in the sunshine. A short walk from there is a good size pond with the largest catfish I’ve ever seen. The biggest looked like a small reef shark coming to the surface. The monstrous catfish mingle peacefully with oversized koi among the water lilies.

From there, we crossed the river and walked a few blocks to Wat Preah Prom Rath. The inner facing wall of the temple’s perimeter has multiple panels with reliefs that tell the story of the Buddha’s birth, life as a prince, search for meaning, enlightenment, teachings, and death. Because it’s a “newer” temple, the work is in great shape. Nikki noted how sparkly the paint was, which was true.

Inside the main temple is a large reclining Buddha. We took a look around before making our way back across the bridge to Wat Bo.

Wat Bo was the least interesting of the three. There wasn’t much happening, but we saw a sign with an arrow pointing to the right. We used Google Translate to determine parking was that way. We popped into a building, but the interior looked like a place that the hold teachings. There was no altar and only a small Buddha. We continued to walk the grounds and found the broadcasting building for FM 106, Radio Station of Buddhism in Cambodia. Playing all your favorite Buddhist chants, I’m sure.

Wat Bo was more like Wat Bust, so we decided to walk back to the hotel, with a lunch stop. I had a delicious cashew chicken, with a savory chili paste. Kim was less enthused with her ginger chicken, probably because all the chicken bits were still attached to the bones. It didn’t look super appetizing.

We spent quite a while in the hotel pool before cleaning up for the night market. Our first purchase was cheesy corn. Oh so good. It was sweet corn with a whole lotta cheese. We polished it off quickly and settled on pizza for dinner. We sat by the river and enjoyed some cool (relatively) evening air and shared a veggie pie. We didn’t do a lot of shopping. We’ll leave that for tomorrow night.Read more