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I dashed out of the guest house and picked up my Moto driver at 8:00.
We took the 15 nubute ride out to the ticket offie which was incredibly busy and I was starting to wish we'd gone earlier as there were many bus loads of chinese and what apeared to be south Korean tourists.
Once Id gotten my three day pass we were in. drove past Angkor Wat, which looked impressive from a distance but would be left as the last site for today.
We first went to Angkor Thom (walled city) and this involved us having to ride through the very impressive gate (just like something out of Tombraider.)
The first site we reached was the amazing Bayon complex. this is a large multi level maze of a temple which has hundreds of huge face sculptures (of Avalokiteshvara?) Spent a fair while here as there was a lot (maybe to much) to take in.
Afterwards I went next door to Baphoun which has an incrediblt causeway to the temple but unfortunatly most of it is closed of due to alot of restoration. It was also madeningly full of Chinese tourists who seemed to
have absoulutely no awareness of their surroundings and kept walking in front of me when I had my camera out.
Next I wondered down to Terrace of Elephants which as the name suggests has a lot of wonderful sculptures of elepjhants plus some a mazing wall carvings to boot. The temle was small but the stairs to the top were incredibly steep.
Next was the terrace of the Leper king. The main wall has thousands of incredible carvings depicting buddas and battles. For some reason after having read the Lonely Planet section for this temple I seemed to have nissed loads out including the Leper king himself - oh well I'll blame it on the heat.
I then wondered across to see the 12 stupa/temples of which the names I havnt been able to work out (the lonely planet map seems to have missed them out or put them in the wrong place or something) Anyway some dude wanted to give me a tour of these of which obviously there was going to be a hidden charge so I didnt hang around.
After these I headed to the Kiosk number 19 to meet my moto rider and we then
got going again and headed to the impressive steped temple of Ta keo.
After an hour here I got on the moto again and I was taken to the tmple that id really been waiting for, Ta Prohm. But first I had a quick lunch.
Ta Prohm is really Tomb raider territory. The site has virtually been abandond and is now slowley being eaten up by the jungle vegitation. There are these tree roots (gigantic) which are just wrapped around stone walls and vines creeping in and out of every nook and crany. Great for photos.
Spent a fair amount of time here before heading of finally to Angkor Wat. Its hugh and absolutely amazing considering its only a temple (larger the most castles). Wondered around here for quite some time with only a small stop to talk to a couple of cute posh girls who had been on my bus down from Phnom Penh. Unfortunalty they were leaving back for the tomorrow, oh well never mind. Climbed all the way to the top of Angkor Wat whcih was cool again the stemps were so so steep.
As I started to leave it unfortunatly started rain hard. In fact it
was a proper rain storm and I was forced to wait for an hour for it to ease off a bit. Once it did I found my rider and was taken back to my Guest house.
It was now about 5:00 and it had been a long day. I relaxed a bit upstairs in the restaurant and got talking to a french guy (theatre student) and a brazilian called Arthur. The Brazilian had just cycled over from Thailand. In fact he'd acctually cycled over from Brazil! No kidding, he'd just done most of South America, New Zealand, Oz, indoneasea and reasently Malasyia and Thailand. This guy was being sponsered by schools in brazil to travel and write articles on the web to educate brazilian school kids about the outside world. He's planning to do 40 countries in three years, on his bike!
After some long conversations I excused myself and headed to the centre for some dinner. Went to theKhumer Kitchen Restaurant which had recently according to the LP had had Mick Jagger as a guest. Had the Pumpkin and Coconut soup which was divine, seriously the best thing ive had in many months. Plus the service was kick ass
and it all cost the same as anywhere else.
Later headed back to the quest house and being bushed I went to bed
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Andy C
non-member comment
Spectacular
Wow, those old buildings look amazing! Reminds me of The Mysterious Cities of Gold!