River Cabins and Royal Palace

The front office staff at the Kindergarten Campus, Lalen and Sok Eng, offered to take us around and show us some of the sights.  They had wanted to do the killing fields but thats going to take some preparation so instead we settled for the Museum and Royal Palace.  As I have done the Museum already I met up with the group afterwards just in time for lunch.  We all piled into the car...all 8 of us!  It took a couple of tries but eventually we managed to find a comfortable way of sitting.  After the longest drive ever we pulled up to the cutest little bungalow's, there were some in the trees, on the water, on stilts!  It was gorgeous.  We were seated in our own private bungalow and Sok Eng and Lalen proceeded to order all of the traditional foods for us to try.  There was SO MUCH food!!  We started with chicken and fried corn (delicious by the way), then came a whole fish head and all which Lalen devoured along with its lungs which had left green goop on the rest of the fish.  There was also fried rice, seafood salad, and beetles!  After watching Lalen peel off the legs of the beetle and its wings I felt as though I could manage a tiny little beetle, sure enough it wasn't all that bad, it reminded me of eating spits as the beetle was nicely crunchy with a really good seasoning.  After spending over two hours eating I was beyond full and we still had the Royal Museum to do.  We piled back in the car for the long drive into town and got to the Royal Palace at the hottest time of day.  I was expecting it to be a little more showy and grand but there really wasn't much to see on the grounds of the Palace so we were soon finished our adventures.  We said our goodbyes to our tour guides for the day and found a cute rooftop bar to settle into before our weekend came to an end.

Lunch in this Beautiful place!

 Private Bungalows

 Bungalow's on the water (we were up above)

 Leftover beetle remnants

 SO MUCH food

 the fish. and its green lung slim

 Car ride selfie

 The Royal Palace

 One of the structures within the grounds of the Royal Palace

The Silver Pagoda

 This Buddha is the Bhumisparsha Mudra: Earth Touching, Calling the Earth to Witness, or The Victory Over (Subduing) Mara

Literally Bhumisparsha translates into 'touching the earth'. It is more commonly known as the 'earth witness' mudra. This mudra, formed with all five fingers of the right hand extended to touch the ground, symbolizes the Buddha's enlightenment under the bodhi tree, when he summoned the earth goddess, Sthavara, to bear witness to his attainment of enlightenment. The right hand, placed upon the right knee in earth-pressing mudra, and complemented by the left hand-which is held flat in the lap in the dhyana mudra of meditation, symbolizes the union of method and wisdom, samasara and nirvana, and also the realizations of the conventional and ultimate truths. It is in this posture that Shakyamuni overcame the obstructions of Mara while meditating on Truth.

The second Dhyani Buddha Akshobhya is depicted in this mudra. He is believed to transform the delusion of anger into mirror-like wisdom. It is this metamorphosis that the Bhumisparsha mudra helps in bringing about.