Cambodia: Kulen Mountain

So welcome to Kulen Mountain! Throughout Cambodia there are so many neat places where you can see the most unique of things, and Kulen Mountain was one of them. Situated at the top of the mountain is a very active temple, where people can go to wash themselves clean, pay some money to have the priests perform prayers on your behalf, but here it's unique because they have both the Buddhist and Hindu religious icons. We first stopped at the Hindu Temple to see the Holy Lingam and the Ganesha.  When I was in Bali, I got Kevin a wood Ganesha carved from a crocodile tree. This was his first time seeing a Hindu temple and a Ganesha statue.  After visiting the Hindu temple, we walked about 10 feet to the Buddhist temple.  Next to the temple was a flight of stairs to view the laying Buddha carved from a single large boulder.  One had to remove their shoes to ascend the stairs, so off our shoes went and up the stairs we went.

So the story about this Buddha is that it is carved from this super large boulder which connects to the mountain.  We we told by our tour guide that the Buddha was carved so it would be taller then the Hindu church and their statues.  We were also told that the Buddhist believe that since their Buddha is not only taller, but carved out of the rock connecting the entire mountain, that it means that their religion is better and bigger then the Hindu because their Buddha owns the rock where their church is stationed.  It's almost like a 'my horse is bigger then your horse' scenario.  We were able to see the laying Buddha, it was huge, you couldn't even get a picture of the entire thing because it was so big.  The back side had so much graffiti.  Pretty much all you could see was writings and dates over the entire back.  It now holds many signs that say "Do not write on statue". But one thing I know for certain, Jane was there 7/1/08.  As we were leaving the room, a priest insisted that I ring the gong three times.  So, I got to ring the Buddhist gong for the Kulen Mountain laying Buddha.

The next place we visited was the holy 1000 Lingams.  Now, before coming here and while here we were given different stories of why this is significant.  I was told that it was a holy river and many would come and wash here and be made clean.  After doing some research I learned that a lingam represents a Hindu deity known as Shiva, and symbolizes cosmic energy and potential.  We were told a tale about a King who had the river re-routed so he could hire someone to build these sacred lingams in the river bottom.  The king then washed in the river in hopes that he would be blessed with a male heir.  This is why the river is sacred and the waterfall that follows the river is also considered sacred.  There is a ton of stories and controversy over what a lingam actually represents, and the way our tour guide explained it, was that the lingam is a representation of the male reproductive organ.  I have a feeling that the slang story that the tour guide tells and laughs about is not the true story behind the lingams, and that the true story is one of a deep religious and sacred background.  So here is Kevin and JR acting all male like, due to the story our tour guide told us.

Our last stop for the day was Kulen Mountain sacred waterfall.  This very waterfall made it's debut on Tomb Raider when Laura Croft jumped off the top.  This was a gigantic roaring waterfall.  It was absolutely huge and beautiful and loud.

The kids were looking forward to swimming in a waterfall all day.  They jumped into their swimsuits and practically ran straight into the water.  They were not expecting it to be so extremely very cold.  The water was like straight thawed from ice cold.  I brought little Monster in with me while Kevin stayed and snapped some pictures.  Monster was not happy with me.  He kept climbing up my body to get his feet out of there water.

There was a lady that was renting large tubes, so we rented one and let the kids go out and have fun.  They jumped on the tube, pushed each other off, had splash wars, and climbed the rocks around the falls.

The water was much too cold for me, so I switched with Kevin and took over camera duty, while he went out in the water to play with the kids.

The kids only lasted about 30 minutes in the cold water.  Poor Monster and Little A had blue lips and were shaking when we finally convinced them to come out.  All the kids loved playing in the water.  They had so much fun together.  I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed.  I'm going to be truthful here, I always love a waterfall more when you have to work for it.  But this is a very touristy waterfall, and all you have to do is walk through a small town to get to the falls.  It was so very packed.  There were so many people, they were everywhere.  I was able to magically erase the millions of people using Lightroom.  The water was cold, so the kids were not able to swim as long as they wanted.  The water was also pretty dirty.  For how long it takes to drive up Kulen Mountain, I don't think I would do this if I could have a do-over.  I personally don't think it was worth the trip with kids.  But, that's just me.  I can't deny that it was very beautiful though.  And it was the biggest waterfall I have seen yet.