NEAK PEAN

January 07, 2017

Highlights

Unique island temple
Look for sculpture of the horse Balaha
Look for sculpted fountainheads

We spent roughly 20 minutes at Neak Pean. Although Neak Pean is very small, it's really worth the visit. It is completely different from the other temples because of the wooden walkway that connects to Neak Pean.

Ticket check again.

We were stopped by a young guy at the entrance. He was promoting lots of guidebooks for us. 'Lady, do you want to buy a guidebook? It's very cheap. ' I exchanged look with my friend and we decided to buy it. We bought it for USD10 and we shared the book. We didn't hire a tour guide so we decided to buy a guidebook. The title of the book was Ancient Angkor， written by Michael Freeman. The book was very nice but I found it very hard for me to digest all the facts in such a short time. Thus, you can buy some books to read first before you plan to visit Angkor.

The view on the way to Neak Pean was totally the best part of it.

We totally felt like we were walking back in time.

Although Neak Pean is small, it has a collection of five ponds. However, all the ponds had fences. It's good to have fences because you know..some insane tourists may swim at the ponds. Lol. Who knows.

This monument is supposed to be a hospital where the ancient people go to balance the elements in their body and get cured as per the ancient Hindu beliefs. The base of the island is encircled by two naga serpents. Besides that, the four pools in Neak Pean symbolize the Hindu belief of 4 elements which are fire, wind, earth and water, balancing which would heal and cure a person.

Amazing facts. I could totally feel the healing effect of it by just simply looking at the beautiful views around Neak Pean.