Follow Me To Wonderland: Cambodge Part I

Siem Reap and the Angkor Temples

After a few hours in Bangkok airport we flew to Siem Reap, having planned nothing as with my usual style of travel, we jumped on the back of a couple of motos and were driven into town to find some accommodation. The first few things I noticed upon arriving in Cambodia were - it was very hot even though it was the "cool" season, there are many Eucalyptus trees in Siem Reap and everyone drives very slowly, which did encourage a relaxed feel for the trip. Our moto drivers took us to a hotel, but we decided we could find something better. This turned out not to be the case! The place we finally checked into was completely awful, but that’s sometimes what happens when you arrive late in the afternoon without any arrangements! After dinner we spent a substantial amount of time finding a pleasanter place for the following night.

After checking into our new hotel we spent the day wandering around Siem Reap. In the afternoon we hired bikes and rode the 8 km to Angkor Wat to see our first sunset. There were so many people but we still managed to leave the crowds behind and enjoy the view. The bikes we rode out on weren’t very comfortable so the following day we hired newer bikes - this proved to be a mistake and as a result we were very sore! We tried to catch the sunrise at the lake Sra Srang, but left the hotel too late - at 5:30am... However we did have a wonderful day visiting Ta Prohm - which to the complaint of many archeologists has been left in its "overgrown/trees growing all over the temple/Indiana Jones" state, another temple Benteay Kdei and the huge bathtub that is Sra Srang. We also went back to Angkor Wat to have a better look around in day light. Ta Prohm was incredibly beautiful - I took more photos than I thought possible. Angkor Wat was very impressive, after being warned to climb at our own risk we decided to forgo shoes for the final ascent to the top of the temple. The stairs were indeed very steep, my stomach lurched somewhat when I looked down from the top. The top the temple was covered in carvings of semi-naked large breasted women, well maybe not covered but there were a substantial number of them. Interesting.... very spiritual!

That night Choco discovered food poisoning..... so he spent the following day in bed while I bought him supplies and looked around Siem Reap. Choco eats more crap than anyone I know (and has still lost about 10 kg since arriving in Thailand) and not surprisingly the first thing he ate after his bout of food poisoning was a snickers bar.... Having lost a day of our three day pass we decided to get a tuk tuk to take us around the temples on the third day. Again we missed the sunrise as Choco wasn’t up for too early a start. We visited Neak Pean - wasn’t overly impressed, Prah Khan - loved it similar to Ta Prohm, built by the same King but bigger, Takeo - massive structure and difficult climb but not overly interesting, Angkor Thom - the biggest of the Angkor complexes, very popular but still some lovely areas away from the crowds and finally to Phnom Bakheng for the sunset - unfortunately clouds covered the sky for our final sunset....

The following day we got the bus to Phnom Penh.

Photos from the Angkor Temples, mainly from Ta Prohm and Prah Khan - I got a little carried away with the number of photos I uploaded.... sorry!