Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2008
Edit Blog Post
After waking at 3am sweating madly and the felling that my stomach wanted to leave my body out of any orifice it could find. I knew it was my turn to have what most people get when they travel in this part of the world a dose of the shits!! Now we both knew that this would happen at some stage but when you’ve got to sit on a bus for 5 hours it’s not the kind of thing you want. So it’s off on the bus armed with rolls of toilet paper and spare undies we start our 5 hour bus trip to Siem Reap which is the city that has the amazing Angkor Temples close by. Arriving in Siem Reap with my stomach still in one piece we are instantly surround by Kids trying to sell us everything from postcards to books and all sorts of rubbish. You can’t give them anything cause as soon as you give to one there is a small scale war breaks out amongst the rest of them. We head for the rather dodgy looking guy holding the sign with MR SHAYNE written on it, The hotel that we stayed in Phnom Penh has
a sister hotel that gave us a good deal on the one we are staying at in Siem Reap so I guess they also sent our name and bingo we have a Tuk Tuk driver to our hotel.
After getting settled in at our hotel we headed out to get some food and find a Tuk Tuk to take us to the Angkor Temples in the morning within minutes we bump into this young dude called Mr San and we agreed on the short tour of the temples starting at 5am for the price of $12 dollars for the day. So it was a quick bit to eat and straight to bed for the early start tomorrow. As well and being so tired from the bus trip and my dose which has now seemed to have past, thank god we sleep like babies.
25th Feb.
Were up at 4am and head out the front to meet Mr San for our day tour of the Temples. The first is Angkor Wat which is huge and to see it at sunrise is something we both won’t forget for a long time. Not only was the Temple amazing that time of the day,
but when day light broke every insect and bird seemed to wake at the same time making the most unreal sound you could imagine!! After sunrise we went in and had a good look around the Temple which seemed to be never ending in size. Next stop was the Temple Banteay Kdei where Barbs finally gave into the little girls selling silk scarves and bought 1 for 3 dollars which turn out to be a very nice scarf. We had a quick look around the Temple then headed for Ta Prohm temple which was one of the coolest looking temples of the day. It’s easy to see why they filmed the Tomb Raider movies within the Temple as the massive trees have grown over it to show their huge roots hanging down like giant arms holding it altogether. We stayed for about an hour until we got so pissed off with the Japanese tourist pushing and shoving in front of every photo that we wanted like they owned the place. These people had the manners of their favourite food (DOGS!!!) we apologise to any Japanese people reading this but this group of 45 to 70 years olds were an embarrassment
to your nation!!!! Finally after a spot of lunch we ended up at the Bayon Temple without the gang of Japanese tourist in sight this temple was amazing with the giant faces looking down upon you making the place seem like you were being watched over. We took a lot of photos here and really enjoyed it as our final Temple of the day. The whole of Angkor has so many temples you could spend a week here and still not get everything in, with what we have seen during the day it has to be one of the most amazing historical site that we’ve visited!!!
Returning back to the hotel with half an inch of red dust all over us a good shower and a couple of hours beside the hotel pool was the best way to relax after walking around the temples. We went out for tea and found what has to be the coolest restaurant we have ever been to. The Deadfish guesthouse and Bar in Siem Reap is a must do!! We sat on the floor on massive cushions around a small table the food was divine and the atmosphere was very cool. All the clocks
on the walls are not set to the right time as they say why are you in a hurry, With the traditional Khmer dancing and the food being pulled up to the different levels by pully ropes this place has everthing!! To top it off after your finished eating you can for 50 cents feed the.... I shit you not!!LIVE CROCODILLES..Yes they have a Croc pit in the restaurant and for 50 cents you get a bowl of fish and you can feed the Crocs!!!Leaving the restaurant we walked back to the hotel through a night market that sold Traditional hand crafts made by landmine victims and various orphanages from the region so it was good to get some crafts that you know that the money will help others.
26th Feb
Bit of a lazy day planned for today as we have to get ready to fly to Laos tomorrow. We spent the day getting bits and bobs to keep us going for the next week or so as when we get to Laos it’s going to be a lot less of the home comforts that we have been used to. Where we are staying on Don Det in the
4000 island area on the Mekong River there is no running water and no electricity so back to basics for a week and a bit!!We had a nice day chilling out and Barbs made a wee friend. The little girl who’s Mum is the lady who cleans our room has been playing outside for the last couple of days. Obviously her Mum doesn’t earn enough money to send her to school so when Barbs went over to the shop and bought two packs of colour crayons and gave them to the wee girl and her friend with some paper the usual happy smile turned into biggest smile on any child you could have seen. She couldn’t stop saying thank you and run around showing the staff her new crayons. While she was drawing some pictures with her new crayons Barbs was talking to her parents on MSN and when she came over to show us her pictures she seen herself on the Laptop and the next thing we have half the clean staff standing around laughing at themselves while talking to Doug and Linda in New Zealand.
Cambodia has been everything and a whole lot more than we expected and
we would recommend it to anyone!!!
Next blog will be Laos..LATTERS!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Brian&Dianna
non-member comment
Hi guys it looks like you r havng a hell of a good time dont fall in the croc pit