Siem Reap - Angkor Wat

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

We were sad to leave Laos as both Luang Prabang and Vientiane had their own charm but also excited to start our Cambodian leg of our trip. We got in our pre booked taxi around 5 in the morning, I had a shit nights sleep I don't know which hotel was worse Hote Lao (construction site) or Inter City hotel which was like living without walls or windows I heard a couple talking to each other at about 0400 and thought they were in the hall way outside our room only to here their door open there bags wheel downstairs. This couple (Americans) were in our prearranged cab when we got downstairs and if it wasn't for there cab arriving later probably would have taken ours. If I was on the amazing race I definitly would have used a uturn on them. The flights to Siem Reap were incident free. We had to do a stopover in Pakse in southern Laos to complete immigration as I'm guessing Vientiane doesn't have the facilities. It was only a 40min stopover and we were in Cambodia around 0930. Siem Reap airport is really modern and convient the Visa On Arrival took less than 5 mins and we had hotel pick up waiting outside. Hopefully the rest of our trip goes this smoothly.

The hotel is nice and located about 15min walk from the main centre of town. I had a bit of a kip and had to redo my hairhis haircut is going to be painful) then we walked into town grabbing a little seafood noodle dish at a point and eat joint on the way. We walked around for the rest of the day trying to get a bit of a feel for Siem Reap without much luck. It seems fairly touristy and none of the roads have names. The only street that is well sign posted is Pub street which has more Aussies than Sydney. There are so many Aussies that there are kids selling post cards who can recite the last 5 Aussie Prime Ministers know the population of all the major cities and all the native animals. The tuk tuk drivers and shop keepers are alot pushier than in Laos which at first takes some adjustment but they are all nice enough when you say no thanks, except one lady that followed Amanda for 100 metres and we had to jump out in front of a bus to avoid her. We grabbed a bit of mexican for dinner and tuk tuked it back to our hotel. Pumped for our tour of Angkor tomorrow.

We had a prearranged tour guide/driver for today and as planned headed down to the lobby at 0830 we were met by the whole population of Japan waiting to get on the tour buses parked outside. They must have been pumped their are to fake buddha heads out the front of our hotel and they took it in turns taking photos of each other with it. I even saw a couple getting photos with the ash trays out the front. After they filtered out I saw a short Cambodian guy holding a piece of paper with my name on it. He introduced himself as Mara and we had a bit of a laugh at the hectic tour groups, we came up with a plan to avoid them as much as possible today. The trip via the ticket booth to "Ta Prohm" took about 20 minutes and the sight where some of tomb raider was filmed did not disappoint, Mara showed us where Angelina Jolie stood there was a shit load of tourist saying "Angelina Angelina". Ta Prohm will always hold a majestic place in my memory as it was the first of these ancient temples I ever saw. After Ta Prohm Mara took us to Ta Nii a temple of the beaten track a good 10 min walk from the road it was definitly worth the walk, we were the only people there and Mara explained it was one of the only sites that had not been reconstructed. The access you have to all these sites is astounding you can climb pretty much wherever you want without any issues. We reluctantly left Ta Nii to Ta Keo the first of the pyramid style Temples the trip up to the top was a decent journey. The site didn't seem to be as intricately decorated as the previous two. To be continued..... I'll try to upload some photos and update tomorrow from Phnom Pehn.

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