Cambodia, Siem Reap

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Cambodia

Siem Reap - the land of Angkor Wot.

Siem Reap is small, compact town which was brilliant in many ways. Our hotel was right by the aptly named 'pub street' so that helped! We spent the afternoon having a few drinks with an English local who filled us in on all things Cambodian. He also did his best to keep the kids at bay who constantly pester you to buy things, including photocopied books which were fab quality and only $4!! Copyright? Nah - not here!! We also aw alot of beggars with missing limbs - landmines.

We went to pub street in the evening for delicious Cambodian curry and ended up in the infamous Angkor what pub - backpacker heaven! We only wanted to stay for one drink but the heavens then opened and it rained beyond belief with the road flooding in minutes! We had a bucket or two to pass the time and got a tuk tuk driver to get us some ponchos so that we could head back - we looked hot!!! Next day we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day to take us round Angkor Wot ($15 for the day). We went to the Main Angkor Wat temple first (the pictures you all see in tourist brochures) and it was truly amazing despite the rain and millions of Japanese tourists!! We then headed to Ta Phrom temple which is were Tomb Raider was filmed and it was so so beautiful and mysterious with trees and roots growing in, around and on the buildings. It had such a mystical, magical feel about it - despite them renovating a part of it at the time. Trace got thoroughly pissed off at the Jap tourists who insisted on taking about twenty photos PER PERSON in front of the famous Lara croft door. An awesome place nonetheless!

We then bought our driver some lovely lunch before heading to Angkor Thom which used to be an ancient town of 1million people. We headed straight for Bayon which again, was a truly beautiful architectural masterpiece. So so good and highly recommended. Just stunning temples and incredible to think they were made so big with such detail without so much as a crane!

Upon our return to Siem Reap through lovely rice paddies, we headed to a shop called Rogue which downloads movies, music and e books illegally, well not quite illegal in Cambodia! We got 15 movies for the iPad for $10 and 15 e-books for our Kindles for another $10. That should keep Trace quiet for a while!! But what a bargain!!!

Next day we hired the tuk tuk driver again to go to some temples further afield. The journey there was incredible as we got to see true Cambodian village life but the temples were, well, average and in hindsight, we shouldn't have bothered as we were spoilt by the previous day. We did keep getting badgered for money by people who had limbs blown off or bad burns from unexploded land mines - harrowing to say the least and there are still millions of them waiting for explosion in the surrounding countryside. A glimpse of what these amazing people have been through and still go through to this day. Siem Reap was fab - we both loved it and shall remember it fondly. A must for anyone visiting this lovely country.

Next day, we got the bus to the capital, Phnom Phen.

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