What Wat? Angkor of Course.

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What Wat? Angkor of Course.



I'd like to say it was an non-eventful morning flight to Siem Reap but our driver did not show up. The hotel was very accommodating and had their driver take us to the airport. It was a good thing we did not wait any longer to leave since the airport was a bit of a gong show. We clearly arrived after a large bus of French tourists all heading to Siem Reap of course since we were all waiting in the same slow moving line.



Our guide was waiting for us when we walked out of the airport. we were whisked off to a lovely restaurant for lunch.....the only thing missing was a stretch limo!



We had a short afternoon with a visit to three ancient and small temples. The Roulous group of temples are the oldest and really do not look like a whole lot of anything. They are the most insignificant and unspectacular group of temples I've seen at Angkor Wat. I am sure Deb was wondering what the whole Angkor Watt fuss was all about. The light rain quickly cleared up, there were no crowds at the temples and the kids were cute (as usual).



The Pavillon d'Orient hotel is set on the edge of town on a small side street beside a metal basher. It is located on a street of small shops and businesses which describes most of S E Asia. From the road we saw a small sign, a couple of trees and a small doorway. We walked into an oasis of gardens, two swimming pools(one pool is for kids) and 3 two story buildings with the rooms. The restaurant was beside the pool in a garden.



We took the hotel tuk tuk into town, a 10 minute drive is a torrent to motor bikes, cars, pedestrians vans and tuk tuks. There is a large market at the end of the street by the hotel and it adds considerably to the road congestion and noise. We adjusted surprisingly quickly to the noise, traffic and dust.



Pub Street in central Siem Reap just that, a couple of blocks of pubs, bars and restaurants with blaring music, garnish colors cheap beer (like REALLY cheap) and lots of people. It starts to fill up around 6 and by 7:30 the streets were getting packed with people. There is one big change in Siem Reap since I was last here besides the growth in the towns size. The Asian tourists have arrived. When I was here several years ago, the tourists were 90% white. Now it appears to be 50% Asian. The number one and two sources of tourists are Vietnam and China. Like all tourists, they are noisy, especially the Koreans (according to our local guide) and busy taking pictures. A couple of hours of Pub Street was enough.



Ta Prohm was our first stop on a sunny morning. Deb greeted her first sight of the Tomb Raider Temple (so called since several scenes of the movie were shot here) with the first of many "Holy Crap" comments. "Holy crap" reduced out guided to laughter each and every time. No question about it, Tomb Raider is an impressive temple: in the forest with massive trees growing out and over the walls. we could here lots of birds and insects especially parrots. It is a big complex with several courtyards and is spread out over a large area. We were happy to have lots of shade from the trees. It seems that it is instantly hot as soon as the sun comes out in Cambodia.



Angkor Wat was out next stop. We approached it from the west gate, not the east entrance which is the crowded main entrance. we got to see Angkor Wat as it should be seen, uncrowded and in its glory. This is a large site: 1.3 by 1.5 km. We walked past a couple of groups of monkeys playing by the roads in the forest. They were very clean and not aggressive as monkeys.



Angkor Wat's main attraction, other than its massive size, are the 4 galleries on the main floor. These are full of carved figures telling various stories and a huge. They run for a couple of hundred meters each and gallery is 3 panels high (10-12 feet} and are in amazingly good condition. We climbed to the third floor hoping to get to the top for a view of the surrounding site. Alas, the line was very long and we did not want to spend +30 minutes standing in the sun. So off to lunch. We exited via the east entrance and had great views of the temples and the surrounding moat.



After a relaxing, delicious lunch we had our final temple visit: Angkor Thom or Bayon. Bayon has 54 towers still standing and each tower has 4 faces. From a distance it looks like a jumble of rocks, but as we got closer, it sorts itself out into individual towers. This temple also has galleries with carved figures telling stories. However, the real interest is the faces....everywhere you look, the faces are watching you. Some are in great conditions, others are falling down. It was incredibly hot in the sun and we were happy to get into the shade.



On our way out, we walked to the Elephant Gallery which is a huge platform running about 700m. The platform is about 10-12 feet high and is full of carved figures. Opposite there are a number of towers. Angkor Thom is a large site, about 12 square miles and had a population of one million people. It was the largest city in the world at one time.



The rest of the day was spent relaxing.



Our last day in Siem Reap was spent relaxing and we were templed out. We had a leisurely visit to the local market and were the only white faces there. We enjoyed excellent massages before lunch.

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