Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

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From Phnom Penh, we caught a 7 hour bus to Siem Reap, which is one of Camobodia's bigger towns in the north-west of the country. Primarily, it is used as a base to explore the ancient temples of Angkor, and this is exactly what we did ourselves. The bus journey was smooth, and we managed to get a real taste for rural Cambodia, stopping several times at makeshift 'service stations'! These had a variety of culinary delights on offer - including fried tarantulas!! We declined this opportuniy to broaden our tastes and quickly got back on the bus after seeing several women carrying live ones right next to us.

The poverty of the country was really obvious in these more rural areas, with lots of street children wandering around and surrounding Westerners in a way which you often see in news reports from Africa, some selling fruit and others begging. The Cambodian housing was also primitive, all made from pieces of wood and branches, many on stilts to avoid the monsoon flooding.

We explored Siem Reap on our first evening, wandering through its many night markets and atmospheric streets, full of tourists, bars and places to eat. It was like a different worlds compared with what we had seen during the journey, fairly developed and benefiting from the affluence which tourists bring.

The next day (sunday) we spent at Angkor, visiting many of the temples - or as many as you can in one day as there are so many. Pretty impressive structures (especially considering they were built about 1000 years ago from giant blocks transported down rivers) as you can see from the pictures! The sheer size of them was staggering and quite overwhelming. The heat and humidity made it tough for us both spending so much time in the sun though, so we took plenty of breaks and struggled to believe this was apparently one of the cooler periods of the Cambodian year!

Yesterday we left Siem Reap for Bangkok on another long bus journey, crossing the Cambodian border into Thailand. As with all the border crossings, it was a bit chaotic and confusing at points, but we got to Bangkok eventually and checked into our hotel. Our first impressions of Bangkok and Thailand were good, and it is so much more developed than Cambodia, with more organised roads and skyscraper buildings - we even have a Boots store a few doors down from where we are staying! We are just off to explore some of its many temples and palaces this afternoon...

A and R x

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