The Churning of the Ocean of Milk

A Story from the Mahabharata and a Collection of its Representations

The Churning of the Ocean of Milk is a story from the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata, though slightly different versions appear in other ancient texts. We first came across it in 2014, and repeatedly since, but it is not, I think, well known in the west.

Indra, the King of the Gods and his elephant Airavata disrespected the sage Durvasa who cursed all the gods making them so weak and feeble they lost control of the universe to the demons.

Indra sought help from Vishnu, the Supreme God, who suggested they co-operate with the demons to churn the Ocean of Milk and so release Amrita, the Nectar of Immortality, for their mutual benefit. Vishnu would then see to it that only the gods got to drink the Amrita.

Using the holy Mt Mandara as a churning paddle they wrapped Vasuki the king of the serpents round the mountain and then first the demons pulled on the head, then the gods on the tail, back and forth until the churning was complete. A number of treasures emerged from the Ocean, including Lakshmi who became the wife of Vishnu, and Chandra the moon god. Finally came Dhanvantari, the heavenly physician, holding a pot of Amrita. Vishnu, in the form of the enchanting damsel Mohini distracted the demons while Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu, delivered the Amrita to the gods.

The rest, as they say, is history – or in this case mythology.

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Feb 2014

We first encountered the story at Angkor Wat

Demons heaving away on Vasuki, King of the Serpents
The carving, on one of the lower galleries at Angkor Wat, is so crisp it cannot be original

Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu temple between 1120 and 1150. It became a Buddhist temple when the Khmer Empire converted to Buddhism shortly afterwards, but 'The Churning' is a story Buddhists seem happy to retell. The story appears in non-temple settings as well...

The south Gate, Angkor Thom (Feb 2014)
On one side of the bridge the gods are pulling on the serpent, on the other side are the demons. The figures here are original, except for some of the heads

Xieng Khuan Buddha Park, Vientiane, Laos
March 2014

In the 1950s, a few kilometres south of Vientiane, Bounleua Soulilat, a the holy man for whom the word 'eccentric' rather overstates his normality, built the Xieng Khuan Buddha Park.

Xieng Khuan Buddha Parl, Vientiane

The Park includes a globe.

The world, Xieng Khuan Buddha Park, Vientiane

Entering through the mouth you find hell at the bottom and the world up a set of concrete stairs. In the heavens above is a delightfully naïve 'Churning'.

The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, Xieng Khuan Buddha Park, Vientiane

Colombo Sri Lanka
January 2015

Sri Lanka is predominantly Buddhist, but 13% of the population, mostly Sri Lankan Tamils, are Hindu. Sri Lanka's oldest Hindu temple is the Sri Kailasanthar Swami Devashthanam Kovil, also (for no reason I could discover) known as the Captain's Garden Temple in Colombo.

Sri Kailasanthar Swami Devashthanam Kovil, Colombo

Inside is a depiction of the 'Churning'.

The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, Sri Kailasanthar Swami Devashthanam Kovil, Colombo

Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India
March 2016

Not so far away, just across the strait, is Rameswaram, an island off the coast of India where we saw another 'Churning.'

A 'Churning' outside the building of the Swami Sadanand Pranami Cheritable (sic) Trust

The Swami Sadanand Cheritable (do they come from Surrey?) Trust runs schools and is involved with promoting blood donations.

[and added later]

The Sun Temple, Modhera, Gujarat, India
March 2019

The Modhera temple, dedicated to the sun god, Surya was built in the first half of the 11th century by King Bhima I of the Chaulukya Dynasty who ruled Northern Gujarat/Southern Rajasthan from c.940CE to 1244.

The Sun Temple at Modhera, Gujarat

Low on one of the external walls of the shrine I found a small, incomplete representation of the churning. Unlike the carving at Angkor Wat it looks worn and damaged enough to really be a thousand years old. The surviving figure on the left looks human - a god presumbly - those on the right have rather simian features, I presume they are the demons.

The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, Modhera Sun Temple, Gujarat

A Little Background - India and the Classical Civilizations

As a child I loved the Greek legends. I reread the story of Jason and the Argonauts when we visited Colchis (now eastern Georgia), the home of the Golden Fleece. It is a wonderful tale though Jason and his crew are nothing more than a band of brigands and Medea, Jason’s love interest, is a psychopath.

Medea and the golden Fleece. Europe Square, Batumi, Georgia (Aug 2014)

Modern Greeks, Romans and Egyptians are far removed from their classical forbears; monotheistic religions have eradicated the pantheon of gods around which their myths and legends were woven. No one today worships Zeus, Jupiter or Amun.

Southern India traded extensively with ancient Greece and Rome. It has been called the last surviving classical civilization and Hinduism retains a full, even overfull, pantheon – 33 gods, or 33,000 or 330 million, depending on your inclination.

Educated Hindus will explain that their religion is also monotheistic, that Brahma, the one Creator God is in everything, and the multitude of other deities merely provide ways to understand the many facets of the Creator. At village level I suspect it is different, and the myths and legends live on, sometimes even taken literally.

The main sources of these legends are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, attributed to the poets Valmiki and Vyasa respectively in much the same way as the Odyssey and Iliad are attributed to Homer. All four texts are in poetic form making them relatively easy to commit to memory, so they probably existed in oral form long before they were first written down, which happened somewhere around 600BC both in Greece and India.

The Story of the Emerald Buddha

The Many Connections of a 50cm Tall Jade Buddha

Attempting to talk of the joys of mathematics usually produces quizzical, if not downright unbelieving, looks. During thirty-six years teaching the subject I never stopped learning and I always took delight in the surprising links between apparently separate ideas - there's an example at the end.

The joys of travel are more widely – and perhaps more easily - appreciated. Occasionally we find the same name or idea popping up in different and sometimes widely separated locations and those unexpected links give me the same pleasure as their mathematical analogues.

Introducing the Emerald Buddha

This post is about the Emerald Buddha, a fifty centimetre tall piece of carved jade ('Emerald' referring to its colour rather than the gemstone) that we encountered for the first, but by no mean last, time in Bangkok in 2012.

The Emerald Buddha, Wat Phra Kaew. Bangkok

The Story Starts in Legend

Bangkok, though, is the end of a story that starts in legend in 43BCE when the Buddhist sage Nagasena carved the image in the northern Indian city now called Patna. There is a problem, though: modern scholarship dates the writings that concern Nagasena to a hundred years earlier and none mention his skills as a sculptor.

The Emerald Buddh Goes to Sri Lanka

The statue remained in Patna for 300 years until civil war necessitated moving it to a place of safety and the Buddha was taken to Sri Lanka. Moving important objects a short distance for safekeeping occurs regularly throughout history (see the Book of Kells for one example), but Sri Lanka is a very long way, and the Sri Lankans, who are happy to claim any Buddha connections they can, fail to mention this one.

The Thuperama Dagoba, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, the Buddha's right collarbone is believed to be beneath this dagoba

The Emerald Buddha is Sent to Burma but ends up in Cambodia

In 457 the Burmese King Anuruth requested the Emerald Buddha to enhance the development of Buddhism in his country. There are many stories of bits of the Buddha - hairs of which there were, presumably, plenty and odd body parts that survived his apparently inefficient cremation - being sent around Asia for this purpose, but giving away the Emerald Buddha sounds like uncommon generosity. According to legend, the vessel carrying the Buddha to Burma was shipwrecked on the coast of Cambodia and it fell into the hands of the Khmer emperors.

The great days of the Khmer empire ended in 1432 when Angkor Wat was sacked by the Thais. The Emerald Buddha was carried off and after visiting several locations settled in Chiang Rai in the northern Thai kingdom of Lanna.

Angkor Wat, the great temple of the Khmer Empire, Cambodia,

Wat Preah Keo, (The Silver Pagoda) adjacent to Phnom Penh’s Royal Palace contains a 17th century replica known as the 'Emerald Buddha of Cambodia'. Although, according to the legend, the Emerald Buddha was in Cambodian keeping for almost a thousand years, it was only ever theirs because they found it. Cambodia in general - and Phnom Penh in particular - have little claim on the original but they seem happy enough with their replica and an almost life size solid gold Buddha figure made locally in 1908.

Wat Preah Keo, The Silver Pagoda, Phnom Penh
I failed to take a satisfactory picture of the Silver Pagoda so I have borrowed this one from Wikipedia

To Thailand and Legend Gives Way to History

Another legend states it became lost and was found in Chiang Rai in 1434 inside a stupa that was split by a lightning strike. Whatever the truth of the lightning story, the first incontrovertible evidence for the Emerald Buddha’s existence is in Chiang Rai in 1434.

Chiang Rai was a major city in Lanna, but the capital was the confusingly similarly named Chiang Mai, 150km away. Objects like the Emerald Buddha gravitate towards capital cities, and it reached Chiang Mai in 1468.

South East Asia

To Laos, First in Luang Prabang, then Vientiane

In 1546 the throne of Lanna became vacant and Prince Setthathirath, heir to the Lao kingdom of Lang Xan, was invited to sit on it. In due course he became king of Lang Xan as well and in 1552 he moved the Emerald Buddha to the Lang Xan capital of Luang Prabang, where he built Wat Xieng Thong.

Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang

In 1564 he moved his capital to Vientiane, taking the Emerald Buddha with him. We first encountered Setthathirath dressed like a big boy scout, sitting in front of That Luang in the centre of Vientiane.

King Setthathirath in front of That Luang, Vientiane

He built his personal temple, Wat Pha Keo, to house the Buddha

Wat Pha Keo, Vientiane

In time Vientiane became a vassal state of Siam. In 1779, the Thai General Chao Phraya Chakri put down an insurrection and carried off the Emerald Buddha. General Chakri later became King Rama I of Thailand (the current king is the ninth of the Chakri dynasty [Update: Rama IX died in 2016, the current king is the tenth of that dynasty]) and in 1784 installed the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok where it remains to this day.

Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok

Anyone (or at least anyone who can afford the entrance ticket) may go and see the image. They must behave respectfully and sit quietly on the floor, remembering to arrange themselves in the eastern fashion with legs folded backwards. To point your feet towards the Buddha is extremely ill-mannered and will quickly earn an unobtrusive but nonetheless stern rebuke from one of the stewards.

And so the Emerald Buddha is in Bangkok, which is where, mathematics apart, this post started. The Thais consider it the palladium of their country and it is touched only by the monarch when he changes the Buddha's vestments three times a year. The sage Nagasena, who (allegedly) made, it (allegedly) said the Emerald Buddha would bring "prosperity and pre-eminence to each country in which it resides." Laos would like it; Wat Pha Keo, destroyed in 1828 has been rebuilt and awaits its return, but is doomed to remain a museum that is missing its main exhibit. The Cambodian are sentimentally attached to it but are content with their replica, while the Sri Lankan are hardly aware they ever had it – if they ever did.

Finishing where we started with the, Emerald Buddha in Bangkok
This is the uncropped version of the photograph at the start, taken, of course, from outside the hall of the Emerald Buddha. Taking photographs inside would bring down the wrath of god - or at least of the stewards

Yet to be established is where in the long journey from 50BCE Patna to modern Bangkok does legend turn into fact. Art historians say the carving style is that of 14th century Lanna, suggesting India, Sri Lanka and the Cambodian shipwreck are firmly in the realms of myth and legend. Whether it was ever in Cambodia is problematic and it may well have originated in Chiang Rai, though the lightning strike story is unlikely. It was, it seems, made in northern Thailand and now resides in southern Thailand, and that, for the foreseeable future, is where it will stay.

And to Finish a Little Mathematics

Everybody knows that for all circles, the circumference divided by the diameter gives a constant known as π.

π = 3.142.... the dots indicating that the numbers go on, never stopping and never falling into a pattern.

Anybody who took (and remembers) A level maths, should also know that if you work out the little sum below and then multiply the answer by 4, then the more terms you use the closer the answer gets to π. If you take an infinite number of terms, then it is exactly π.

1-1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 -1/11 + ....

Of course, calculating an infinite number of terms is impossible, but you can get π to as many decimal places as you want by taking enough terms.

The proof is well within the scope of year 12/13 mathematics, but the proof (which does not involve radii or circumferences) does not explain why it is true. What is the connection between this simple sequence of fractions and a circle? I do not know, I not sure anyone knows, but the connection exists.

There are actually a number of infinite series which converge to π. This one, known as the Gregory-Leibniz series, is the simplest. Should you pick up a calculator to check I am telling the truth, be warned that it converges painfully slowly; after 5 terms you get to 3.396…. , others can be much quicker.

Siem Reap (3) Tonle Sap Lake: Part 9 of Following the Mekong through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

A Huge Lake of Variable Size and a Trio of 'Minor Temples'

Cambodia

21-Feb-2014

Tonle Sap Lake

To the Lake

It is 15km from Siem Reap to Tonle Sap Lake, the huge body of water that occupies much of central Cambodia. The road has tarmac most of the way and we reached the dock in about twenty minutes.

Village near the dock, Tonle Sap Lake

It is a busy place where dozens of boats pick up hundreds of tourists.

S quickly acquired a boat which, as usual on this trip was too big, though this time with a meagre half dozen surplus seats, and we joined the procession of tourist boats heading down the canal towards the lake proper. We passed the occasional fisherman and several fish traps.....

Fish traps awaiting deployment, Tonle Sap Lake

Chong Khneas Floating Village

....but there was little to see until we emerged into the lake by the village of Chong Khneas.

Chong Khneas, Tonle Sap Lake

Although it is called a village, the dwellings of 6000 people, many of them stateless ethnic Vietnamese, either float on the water or stand on stilts along the shore. Supported on bamboo rafts or oil drums, the floating houses are basic, lacking electricity, clean water and sanitation.

Chong Khneas, Tonle Sap Lake

French missionaries made little impression on Cambodia, but there are many Vietnamese catholics and their spiritual needs are catered for by a floating church.

Catholic Church, Chong Khneas (or Khnies)

We stopped at a larger house, further out than the village, bobbing above a crocodile farm. Lynne disapproves of keeping crocodile just for their skins - though she would have no problem if they were kept for meat – but in another sense she disapproves of the very existence of crocodiles. She found this a very morally ambivalent place to be.

Resident at a Crocodile Farm, Chong Khneas

South Down Tonle Sap Lake

Leaving the farm we pottered southward keeping a couple of hundred metres out from the shore. At its lowest, in May, the lake covers 2500 square kilometres, draining via the Tonle Sap River into the Mekong at Phnom Penh (we had disembarked at the confluence when we reached Phnom Penh from Vietnam). The arrival of the rains, in late May, coincides with the peak flow of Himalayan melt water down the Mekong, which then becomes higher than the lake and the Tonle Sap River changes direction. By October, when the flow re-reverses, Tonle Sap Lake has increased its area fourfold and its depth by five or six metres – hence the need for houses on stilts.

Once beyond village we left the tourist hordes behind and our captain put the boat in cruise control - i.e. he tied the piece of string he was pulling on to open the throttle to a stanchion. Meanwhile, at the stern, the crew was hard at work.

The crew hard at work, Tonle Sap Lake

We continued for an hour with jungle and mangrove swamps to our left and water as far as the horizon to our right. Crossing the smooth milky coffee coloured surface was relaxing and the breeze caused by our movement provided natural air conditioning.

Nothing much happened until we passed a substantial scaffolding by the water's edge, destined, according to S, to become a restaurant. The captain untied the cruise control and headed for the mouth of a creek. We passed a floating restaurant, full of lunchers though it was not yet eleven, and disemabrked at a boat house a little further along.

Into the Mangroves

Into the creek, Tonle Sap Lake

Taking a 'canoe through the mangrove swamp’ had sounded exotic when we had read about it at home, but we arrived to find thirty or so canoes waiting like taxies on a rank and tourists embarking and disembarking only a little slower than on a Disneyland ride.

A taxi rank of boats among the mangroves, Tonle Sap Lake

All the paddlers seemed to be women, and some had brought their daughters to work.

Among the mangroves, Tonle Sap Lake

We set off, paddled by a young woman sitting at the front of the canoe. She made just the right speed through the mangroves and, to be fair, most of the time we did not feel part of a convoy. We passed several fish traps and a couple of fishermen tending them, wading through the knee deep water.

Fishing among the mangroves, Tonle Sap Lake

Sitting at home the thought of wading in mangroves swamps is horrifying. What about the water snakes and the spiders, and are there leeches? Being there, seeing it done takes away the fear, the water is merely shallow and muddy, it is no longer mysterious or dangerous.

Into the mangroves, Tonle Sap Lake

It was sad, or perhaps worrying, to see how many plastic bags were nesting among the mangroves. The curse of the plastic bag - too cheap, largely indestructible and rarely disposed of properly - is evident all over the developing world, this was just a particularly stark example.

Among the mangroves, Tonle Sap Lake
(I seem to have missed the plastic bags - which makes a better picture, even if it fails to make my point)

Further up the Creek

Our trip over, we returned to our boat and continued up the creek passing through Kampong Phluk, a village of houses on stilts overlooking the river. We did not need to be told the houses have no proper sanitation to know it was a poor, scruffy and dirty place.



Kampong Phluk, near Tonle Sap Lake

The village went on long enough to start looking like a town and the canal became narrower and narrower. Eventually we emerged the other side and docked beside a dirt road where, almost miraculously it seemed, Gung was waiting with the car.

Kampong Phluk, Tonle Sap Lake

North to Rolous for Lunch

We drove for 15kms along a red dirt road. Despite its lack of tarmac it was well-made and we made good speed, throwing up a cloud of dust behind us.

The road to Roulos

We passed through paddy fields, flat and green as far as the eye could see. In places, desperately thin cattle grazed on the stunted grass at the field margins. ‘It’s the dry season,’ S explained, ‘they will fatten up when the rains come.’ [It was the dry season in Laos, too, but their cattle were in fine condition]. An outbreak of houses and shops suggested we were entering the small town of Roulos, known by the wonderful name of Hariharalya (pronounced Harry-harra-lier) when it was briefly the capital of the Khmer empire in the early Angkorian period.

Paddy fields beside the road to Roulos

We reached a tarmacked road, actually Highway 6 that had brought us all the way from Phnom Penh and by it a restaurant set in a garden among trees and further shaded by awnings.

It was a beautiful spot and had, inevitably, collected all the tourists in the region (except for those preferring to eat at 11 o’clock by the lakeside). We ordered spring rolls, steamed vegetables and a 'local fish' curry in a rich coconut sauce.

Lynne was less impressed by the fish curry than I was

I thought the fish was wonderful. Lynne, whose idea it had been to order it disagreed; it was 'fish messed about' in her view, which, I think, means 'too little fish and too much sauce'. She had read the menu, so she only had herself to blame.

The Rolous Group of Temples

The Roulos group of temples is 'one for the specialist' according to the Rough Guide, but as we were there we might as well take a look.

Lolei Temple

Lolei Temple, Roulos

We started at Lolei, originally on an artificial island in an equally artificial lake. It now sits on a mound among paddy fields, flanked by a pagoda on one side and the monks living quarters on the other. Dedicated to the parents and maternal grandparents of Yasovarman I (ruled 889 - 900) and consecrated to Shiva, there is not much of the temple left, though it boasts some well-preserved Sanskrit inscriptions detailing the work rotas of the temple servants.

Monk's dwellings beside the Lolei Temple, Roulos

Bakong Temple

Five minutes driving brought us to Bakong, the state temple of Indravarman I and consecrated to Shiva in 881, though the central sanctuary - which is in good repair - was added 250 years later and restored in 1940.

Bakong Temple, Roulos

It is a temple of trunkless elephants....

Lynne and a trunkless elephant, Bakong Temple, Roulos

..and cheeky-bottomed lions, some so cheeky they have split.....

Cheeky-bottomed lion split almost in half, Bakong Temple, Roulos

...but the view from the top is pleasing.

On the top level of Bakong Temple, Roulos

Preah Ko Temple

Nearby Preah Ko was built in 1179. Constructed on a platform, patches of the stucco that once covered the whole of the temple still remain.

Stucco (not original), Preah Ko Temple, Roulos

In front of the platform Nandi, the vehicle of Shiva, looked up hopefully. Somebody (not in this picture) did try to mount him. As they were not Shiva, and Nandi is frail now that he is in his ninth century, they were, quite rightly, shouted at.

Lynne and Nandi in front of the platform, Preah Ko Temple, Roulos

Back in Siem Reap: Pub Street at Beer O'Clock

We returned to Siem Reap and miraculously found ourselves in Pub Street at exactly beer o'clock, though Lynne decided that a restorative gin and tonic would do her more good. I paid the exorbitant US$2 price tag, which meant I could only afford a 50¢ draught beer for me.

You do not have to wait long for entertainment in Pub Street. A young man soon came along with some magic tricks, juggling and fire eating before diving through a hoop of knives and fire, sadly to the general apathy of the crowd. I thought he was worth a small donation. Lynne thought he was worth more and called me 'mean', ignoring the fact I was the first person to stand up and offer anything.

Entertainment, Pub Street, Siem Reap

Behind the acrobat, as the photograph shows, is a Tex-Mex restaurant and a sushi bar. Siem Reap is not your average Cambodian small town.

We walked back to the hotel arriving just in time to go out again to find some dinner. We chose one of the many restaurants near the old market. Earlier Lynne had been so convinced of her return to health that she had rather overdone it. Unable to face rice, she wanted something simple and went for some noodles with vegetables while I chose the ever palatable pork and ginger. Lynne complained, with some justice, that her noodles were far too sweet – a problem, we have found, with much Khmer food.

22-Feb-2014

A Walk Round Siem Reap

We spent the morning pottering about Siem Reap before our late afternoon flight to Luang Prabang.

The Royal Independence Gardens were a short walk along the shady riverside past the modest Royal residence.

Shady walk beside the Siem Reap River

A shrine to Ya Tep - a local spirit who gives protection and brings luck - sits on a traffic island. Ya Tep has a steady flow of visitors and collects an array of offerings.

Ya Tep shrine, Siem Reap

The shrine to two sister deities sits on the other side of the road where caged birds are sold so that people can gain merit by releasing them. One woman had a large cage packed with sparrow sized birds. With an intense look in her eyes she was thrusting her hands in and grabbing the birds three or four at a time and throwing them into the air. Clearly there was a matter of great importance that she was trying desperately to influence.

Gaining merit by releasing birds, Siem Reap

There is an obvious problem. Gaining merit by releasing caged creatures is fine but, as they have only been caged so they could be released, she was effectively causing the caging and thus, I would have thought, losing as much merit as she gained. Taking into account the birds that did not make it - several collapsed onto the pavement and expired at her feet – she was in negative merit for her morning’s efforts. I don't think this has been thought through.

He's got some birds, too

A flower stall on the corner does good business with those coming to the garden for their wedding photos - there were four or five such groups while we were there. S later confirmed that, as in China, wedding photographs are not actually taken on the wedding day. The clothes, like the photographer, are hired by the hour and an appropriate location chosen to commemorate an event that was weeks, or even months ago.

Three wedding groups, Royal Independence Gardens, Siem Reap

Wandering back towards the hotel we stopped at the Bon Café, ‘your one stop coffee solution’ (they can import our language if they wish, but do they have to import our gibberish as well?) Khmer coffee is respectable enough but a touch ordinary, lacking the power and chocolaty flavour of its Vietnamese cousin.

After a stop to send some emails we made our way to one of the restaurants near the old market. Lynne had perked up while we were at Lake Tonle Sap but had now relapsed and picked at a piece of fish, looking sorry for herself. I had pork and lotus roots. I like lotus roots they have a very similar taste and texture to water chestnuts, and we had seen many in the market but not, before this, on a menu. In China the roots are sliced across so you get something that looks like a showerhead. These however had been sliced lengthways way into 2cm strips, thus losing the crispness. In November 2012 by Lake Inle in Myanmar we were shown how it was possible to twist the filaments in lotus into a usable fibre. Cutting the root this way left those filaments a little longer than was comfortable for eating.

Later our Vietnam airlines flight to Luang Prabang left Siem Reap's small airport - small but still the busiest airport in Cambodia - ten minutes early and arrived at Luang Prabang's even smaller airport over an hour early.

Following the Mekong through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
 

Part 1: Return to Saigon, Cookery and Music

Part 2: Through the Mekong Delta by Sampan
Part 3: Chau Doc
Part 4: Phnom Penh (1) Royal Palaces and Museums
Part 5: Phnom Penh (2) Killing Fields and Torture Chambers
Part 6: Across Cambodia to Siem Reap
 Part 7: Siem Reap (1) Angkor Wat
Part 8: Siem Reap (2) Angkor Thom and Other Temples
 Part 9: Siem Reap (3) Tonle Sap Lake
Part 10: Luang Prabang (1) The Old Town
 Part 11: Luang Prabang (2) Back on the Mekong
Part 12: Luang Prabang (3) Elephants
 Part 13: Luang Prabang to Phonsavan
Part 14: Phonsavan, the Plain of Jars and UXO
Part 15: Vientiane (1) Wats, Stupas and a Heavy Buddha
Part 16: Vientiane (2) A Buddha Park and a Fond Farewell