Siem Reap

Saturday 4^th July 2015

This morning my alarm went off at 7am blaring loud even though last night I had turned down the ringer so I wouldn’t disturb others (seems the alarm volume is separate) I got up and had a shower and got dressed then sorted out my stuff and headed out to meet the rest of my group for a tour of the temples.

We hired the rickshaw to take us to five different temples it was through the hostel and worked out pretty affordable to share the cost. We started off at about 8am starting with Angkor Wat already it was having with people. From the outside it looks much smaller than its 13 square km but once you walk through the main gate towards the complex its true size is revealed.

We spent almost two hours there first walking around the outer wall which is carved with a continuous mural and then went into the inner section and up some extraordinarily steep steps to the temple itself. Originally a Hindu temple I is now Buddhist and inside there were many Buddha idols.

We spent quite some time walking about the inner temple and then made our way down through the courtyards and out to the waiting rickshaw.

Angkor Wat Temple

Out the front of Angkor Wat

This dude looks like a wizard

outer hall at Angkor Wat

I think people having being touching up this carving

Poor lion is missing his face 

Me inside the temple 

From there we drove to Bayon temple at Angkor Thorn this was the last capital of the great kings and has beautiful carved faces all over the place. Bayon had a shrine inside where I stopped to say a prayer before moving on.

Beautiful enigmatic smiling faces

After two temples we were feeling hungry so we asked our driver to stop somewhere for food. All the places were the same sort of price so we just sat down and ordered I had the same conversation about no fish sauce/oyster sauce fish paste as I always have and ended up with a plate of very bland noodles.

Once we had eaten we headed to our next temple on the way we had to drive through an ancient archway as we approached it a line of elephants came walking through with boxes on their backs they were absolutely beautiful but it did make me sad that they weren’t free.

Our next stop was Ta keo which had the steepest steps I have ever climbed they were also quite narrow and very hot to the touch as we climbed. At the top was a pretty beautiful view of the countryside but the inside of the temple was very small.

Going down proved much harder than going up and in sections I had to sit down and bump along on my arse to stop myself falling. It didn’t help that my feet were all sweaty inside my jandals and were slipping about.  There was a lot of work going on at Ta Keo to strengthen the structures they had taken apart an entire building and put it back together with reinforcements.

Next up was my favourite Ta Prohm which is where they filmed scenes from tomb raider. It’s also a great example of the power of Mother Nature as trees have reclaimed the land growing on, through or in the temple. In several places the trees and temples have been held up with metal or wooden supports to help share the weight and stop the temples falling down even more.

All over the place are piles of stones from bits of the temple that have collapsed from the nature growing through its absolutely beautiful. We stayed quite a while here as we all loved the scenery.

Our last stop for the day was Banteay Kdei this temple also had a lot of supports but it didn’t have all the trees coming through more it seemed to just be tumbling down because of time. By this stage it was very hot and there wasn’t very much shade so we didn’t spend to long there. On the way out we saw a huge bright green spider just chilling on a giant web it was the creepiest spider I have ever seen!

Opposite this temple was Srah Srang which is a huge reservoir we went and had a look but it seems like a long time since it’s been full it was almost completely dried up and had cows grazing in it and lots of grass growing. I’m sure it will full up when the rains come.

We walked back to the rickshaw and drove back to the hostel by which stage it was about 4pm it was super-hot and so I found a nice cool spot under a fan and worked out a rough itinerary for the rest of my travels

Crazy Cambodian Rickshaws! and our lovely driver

Around 5.30pm I went with some people to go and get food at a street restaurant the food was good but again it was a bit complicated to make sure I could eat it especially as the boy didn’t really seem to speak much English especially evident when he passed me a plate of chicken smiling saying “no meat”

After eating we went back to the hostel where we chilled out all evening around 10.30pm everyone decided to head out for the night and I decided to go to bed.  

Sunday 5^th July 2015

I let myself sleep until I woke up this morning to try and catch up on sleep I didn’t end up sleeping too late and by 9.30am I was up and ready for the day. I spent some time reading and relaxing and around 11am set off for the Angkor National museum to get a sense of the history of the sights.

The museum is only about 20minutes from the hostel but everyone was telling me it was too far to walk I did it anyway and in no time I was there even if I was sweating heaps

I paid the entrance fee and sprang the extra for the audio guide which ended up being a great investment as it meant I could find a place to sit and listen rather than read endless boards. The museum is really big and set out amazingly with about eight different halls each dedicated to a different part of history.

It took me almost four hours to slowly walk through the whole museum I think I took far longer than most people as I was constantly being overtaken even by people who also had the audio guide! When I came out to the main entrance I looked outside and saw that it was pouring with rain I wasn’t in a rush so I chilled out on a bench and watched the rain until it calmed down enough to walk in.

Surprisingly the tuk tuks didn’t really bother me on the walk home and the closer I got to the hostel the clearer the sky got I stopped off to buy some sun cream and other bits and pieces and by the time I got to the hostel it was clear as a bell.

Not long after I arrived back the power cut out which was a pain as I wanted to upload some photos. Instead I did some writing and then contemplated getting a massage but didn’t. I bumped into the guys I toured the temples with yesterday and we hung out on the rooftop or a while before going in search of some food.

We went looking for a place one of the guys had heard of but when we got there found out that it was closed for good so that put a damper on that plan we walked back across the river and found somewhere to eat near pub street it was actually a pretty posh joint but didn’t cost too much more than what I have been paying.

Cambodian Curry

The view from the rooftop

We ended up sitting on the roof top for quite a while and by the time we headed back to the hostel it was pretty late so I just uploaded some photos and then headed to bed.