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Published: September 1st 2006
So "new shoes" on feet we left Phnom Penh for Siem Reap and the great Khmer temples of Angkor. The gods seemed not to be smiling as were installed on the back seat of the "VIP" bus beside the smelly toilet which profiles so highly when they are selling you a ticket. Six hours later we arrived tired and a little cranky. There must have been 50 tuktuk and moto drivers there to greet us, three security guards rescued the bags while we attempted to dodge the touts! Ed used the method of elbowing them into the bus while I smiled sweetly and told them we would walk. This was a good plan until we discovered we were going in the wrong direction and that it was a 6K trip. We eventually decided on a cowboy by making him promise that once he dropped us at the hotel he would not hassle us to take any trips etc. Needless to say we arrived and he started to hassle us! Tourist central wasn't looking so good.
However the hotel was lovely and the town packed to the gills with bars and restaurants. Including The Red Piano which claims to be a
Reading the daily on the Mekong Express
note the smelly bathroom door in the background...favourite haunt of none other than Angelina Jolie herself. Day one we decided to unwind after our bus trip, check out the obligatory market and swot up for the trip to Angkor Wat the following day.
Day two we woke at the crack of dawn, tucked into potato cakes and bacon (fuel for the long day temple viewing ahead) and took off in our tuktuk. So here comes the blurb. For anyone who doesn't know (and I'm ashamed to say I didn't until I came to Cambodia) the temples of Angkor were built between approximately 800 and 1220 AD by the kings of the Khmer civilisation. From these temples the Khmer Kings ruled a vast empire from Vietnam and China to the bay of Bengal.
The temples sprawl over a vast area and as we only had one day, we had to limit our visit to 4 temples, Angkor Wat (the most famous) Ta Phrom (which has been swallowed up by the jungle) Preah Kahn and the Angkor Thom area (including Bayon with the famous stone faces). The weather couldn't have been kinder and the buildings really are spectacular....no pictures will do them justice. We laughed with the
???
This was the sign on our bedroom door. smart little kids selling water and souvenirs at outrageous prices...after enquiring where we were from they would reply Conas a ta tu? We climbed steps and explored nooks and cranies until our feet would move no more, then we sank back into the tukttuk and returned to Siem Reap for a well deserved beer.
Siem Reap is little other than the hotel centre for Angkor so we got the bus back to Phnom Penh this morning and yup you guessed it...back seat beside the toilet!
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