Siem Reap and Temples

Landed in Siem Reap at around 0705 with only 1 hours sleep at the most after going all day and the night before. There were only about 30 people on the plane.

Arrived At Siem Reap Airport which is quite lovely, reminded me a bit of Koh Samui airport but not as beautiful.

We had already arranged a guide a month earlier called Darith Touch who we found on Trip Advisor and had booked him to pick us up from the airport and take us to the temples for the next two days. As soon as we got to the airport entrance it was a shit fight. Everyone had to fill out swine flu forms which they obviously thought was too difficult to add it to the extra paperwork we had to fill in on the plane before we landed.

After that we lined up for our Visa's. The Visa's were $20 each so you handed your visa form in, then gave the money and waited at another counter to collect it. I paid for myself and Damian with $50 USD so had to wait until another passenger gave them a couple of $5 or $10 USD notes to get my change. I waited about 5 mins until some German had some small notes. We then collected our luggage and headed towards Customs. We had declared 200 ciggarettes each and a laptop computer on our Customs forms. He collected mine and then Damian was trying to find his in his bag. Meanwhile, the Customs officer was too busy texting on his phone so even if I had written that I was carrying 4kgs of crack, he wouldn't have noticed.

Our guide Darith was waiting for us outside with is driver Cameron so we headed to our hotel. Darith gave us each a welcome gift of a cambodian silk scarf in a bamboo case. Very thoughtful. We had thought about getting him a crocodile beer bottle opener at the airport but thought that might be abit tacky.. Lucky we didn't ha ha.

We had organised a guide and a driver for 2 days which was costing us $60 a day. We had wanted to go out to Bantay Srei which is a temple abit further out of town so we were charged another $30 as the cost of fuel here is about $1.20USD a litre and considering the Cambodians make about $1-$3 a day, we weren't going to be tight arses. We knew Siem Reap was going to be the most expensive part of our travel and were happy to have a car and a guide to tell us WTF everything meant.

The dropped us off at our hotel for the next 3 days the Mandalay Inn. The main road which is Sivatha St (please be aware I am going by memory and not fact with street names) was the road from hell. It was that bumpy and full of craters that I was surprised there weren't more tyres lying around with blowouts on the side of the road. Our guide said that the recent rains from the Typhoon that hit Vietnam washed the road away. This was like 4WD'ing the road was in such a shit state. Expected the Bush Tucker man to come out in his Defender and start telling us how to navigate this certain pothole or something.

We then had to wait for our room to be ready so our guide was going to come back at 9am to pick us up. The staff at the Mandalay Inn were fabulous. They taught us the most important phrase we would need which was otey akoon (spelling of cambodian words will be phonetically) which was 'No thankyou'.

The room was quite nice, aircon and a fan that could blow the skin right off your body it was that strong. We were in room 306 which was right next to the communal balcony on that floor which had a table and two chairs so spent a fair bit of time there smoking my duty free winnie golds and reading.

We then headed off to the temples. On the way you have to stop and pay for a pass. We got a 3 days pass for 40 USD each and went to the great city of Angkor Thom where at its height may have supported one million people. Angkor Thom is surrounded by a square wall about 8m high and 12km in length with a 100 metre wide moat. Apparently they used to fill these moats with crocodiles. We entered through the south gate which is the most popular as it has been fully restored. The gate is 20 metres in height and decorated with stone elephant trunks and four faces each facing North, West, East and South.

Our first stop in Angkor Thom was Banyon which is one on my fave temples. It has 54 towers and 216 smiling faces which supposedly are of the king Jayavarman VII.

We then went to the Terrace of Elephants which was used as a giant viewing stand for the public ceremonies. It is 350 metres long, which felt more like 3kms as it was stinking hot and I was ready for passing out.The wall is decorated with Elephants, Garudas and Lions and the carvings are amazing. Joining the Terrace of Elephants was the Terrace of the Leper King. The walls are totally carved with Apsaras and nagas and are in great condition.

We then took off to Ta Prohm which was where Tomb Raider was filmed. This is my 2nd fave temple as it was just so eerie and green. It's collapsing in places but the trees are holding it together in other parts. The trees are growing straight from the actual stone due to bird droppings.

We then decided to call it a day as we were exhausted, sweating our arses off and after bugger all sleep in the last 24 hours, needed to have a shower and find a cold beer.

We went back to the hotel and had a shower. The shower pressure was pretty crappy. Maybe about 4 streams of water if you were lucky but it was hot and we didn't care. The shower and the toilet were in the same area so how interesting... you could actually shit, shower and shave at the same time.

We then ended up heading into town to find something to eat. From the 1-4th November they have a festival called the water festival where everyone comes into Siem Reap or Phnom Phen from the provinces and they have Dragon Boat racing and other activities so the place was buzzing.

We went down this street which they call the alley and it had heaps of restaurants. We ended up eating at the Khmer Family Kitchen. We ordered a massaman curry, a fish amok, two angkor beers and the bill ended up being $6. How unreal is that. Food was $2 each and beer was $1. We then went for a walk and noticed a pub advertising $2 mojito's. We were definately going back for that after we'd checked Pub Street out. Pub street is full of westerners and has lots of places to eat and drink. When you walk past they hassle you to eat at their place.

We ended up talking to a guy who had a sign out the front with $1.80 mojito's. We were sold. We went thru a little alley and there was a restaurant and bar called Real Khmer Cook Resaurant & Bar. There was only about 4 people in there who were eating and the two of us. Whilst looking at their leaflet we realised that it was $1 Mojito's, Blue Margarita's, Margaritas & Caipirinha's until the 4th Nov. We had found our spot!! Only problem was we had organsied to get up at 0430 the next morning to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. Only about 7 cocktails each later did we leave........ around 0130...eeek

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