Temples, Tuk Tuks and Tourists

Sorry about the uninteresting title but its too hot to think of anything clever!

So we boarded our Jetstar plane bound for Cambodia and were slightly surprised when we realised there was only 30 passengers aboard, very surreal, if you ever fly on an airbus with only 30 passengers you will be in for a bit of a bumpy ride as there's no weight to the plane! I was gripping the arm rests several times! (I think I left indentations!)

Anyway after arrival at our very swanky hotel (15 pound a night) we were told our room wasn't yet availalbe so we hired a tuk tuk (Basically a moped towing a carriage) with our driver for the day named Leang, an extremely smiley local. You can hire a driver and a tuk tuk for 8 hours and it costs 6 pound, pretty good value for money. We headed straight for the temples of Angkor and payed the hefty $40 US, entry fees. Our first day was spent doing the rat race with the other hundreds of tourists seeing the main attractions, including Angkor Wat, the mother of all religious temples! The temples are truly amazing but for anyone preparing
Angkor Wat at Sunset
Shame about those big green tents they'd errected! for this trip be ready to do battle with thousands of Japanese to get those special pics!

You do get blown away by the grandeur of the temples and the intricacy in the engravings. The slightly sad thing is that you are literally allowed to walk anywhere in and around the temples and although there are signs saying 'do not touch the engravings' (Some of which are 1200 years old) the signs are small and nearly all are in English, not much use to the non-English speaking tourists of which there are many!! I saw numerous people rubbing the engravings and one idiot bouncing up and down on the star attraction of the Ta Prohm temple, the roots from the huge tree growing into and from the temple.

But although we tried not to, we too on occasion climbed some of the temples as it's hard not to with the guides and tuk tuk drivers seemingly encouraging you to do so.

Day two and we prepared ourselves for another day fighting with the crowds but were instead pleasantly surprised to find many of the temples away from the central ones near deserted and they are equally impressive!
Preah Khan
We managed to take this piccie whilst getting lost (there were 4 exits and we had to venture out 3 before we foung Leang... oops! It was the heat!!) This is the West Gate!Many of these temples had had no restoration whatsoever except for the odd support stopping a wall falling down and attendants who cut the grass and fought bravely with the almost irrepressable jungle from taking over. The days star attraction was one of the smallest and furthest away temples, 39km from Siem Reap, Banteay Srei. This temple is over 1000 years old but the engravings are near perfect as shown in some of the photos. It was also the only temple we visited that prevented you from entering or touching any of the engravings. Definitely worth the 45 minute drive!! In fact the drive itself was worth the money as it was great seeing some of the real Cambodia away from the hussle of Siem Reap.

Day Three was spent touring the old and new markets within Siem Reap, the new market is slightly more hassley than the old and not nearly as interesting. The old market is for locals and tourists and has all the fresh produce being sold to the locals, it makes for some interesting smells!! In the afternoon we made our final trip to the temples to see some of the lesser known temples of
Carvings at Banteay Srei
Banteay Samre and Banteay Kdei we then stopped in again at Ta Phrom as the previous day we had shared the expereince with hundreds of others. Well this time there was no one there, its funny because when we told our Tuk Tuk driver that we wanted to come late in the afternoon he laughed at us, we really couldn't figue this out until we stepped from the tuk tuk and were swarmed by hundreds of 5 year olds asking us to buy their gear, it seems that the tourists all disappear to Angkor Wat in the afternoon and although this means you are surrounded by local kids and sellers, you get the temples to yourself! (The sellers/kids aren't allowed on temple ground) it's well worth the compromise!
We then headed in to see Angkor Wat in all its glory at sunset. We are now booked on a coach to Phnom Penh in the morning, so will hopefully update you soon.

Matt


Hey everyone, I just wanted to write a little note. As Matt has said above, Angkor Wat and the surrounding hundreds of temples are totally amazing and need to be seen to be believed. The
The entrance to Angkor Thom
pictures can't show the whole environment out here and its hard to put into words the feelings and emotions that arise when looking at such old out of this world buildings. The stories, the history, the lives of so many people all come to life and its fantastic that the heritage of the khmer people lives on today. Although there is the hassle to buy things (''1 dollar, 1 dollar, good price for you!!!") and sometimes you feel like you are sharing the experience with a thousand people at a time, there is still a huge amount of magic in the place... a definite must see! Lots of love, Kerrie xxxx

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