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Published: August 8th 2007
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Moon Rise at Angkor
Trace's Pulitzer Prize entry. After a good flight we touched down in Siem Riep, the airport could easily be mistaken for a resort, at 5 months old it is in stark contrast to the rest of the country. There were very few passengers passing through with loads of staff to help, Matt went straight through customs but Trace was held up for ages. The officer just kept looking from her to her passport and giving her a funny look, eventually he let her through. It was after this that Matt informed her that the large red "security checked" sticker had come off her bag, and was clearly stuck across the middle of her chest.
From the airport it was a $5 cab ride into the city and onto our hotel which was new and overlooked the neighbour’s yard which contained a few dogs and a clothes line, we got freshened up before our driver returned and headed out to Angkor Wat.
We were surprised by the number of people buying tickets as it was 4pm in the afternoon, and it felt like the middle of nowhere. We lined up for a short while before the people in front of us left, and we
realised that one of the Australians we had spent time at the refuge with, was in front of us. Once through the entrance we met up with our driver and he took us on to Angkor Wat for Sunset, the first thing we noticed on reaching the area where the thousands and thousands of people, cars, buses, moto's and bikes. However once inside the sheer magnitude of the place surpassed everything else. It is the most amazing sight we have ever seen, we stayed until the sun set and then headed back to the main strip for dinner.
We decided on a place which had 2 for 1 cocktails and 50cent Chang's, we had only ordered one round of drinks when Sarah, Mel and Craig (from the refuge) walked past. They joined us for what became an entertaining meal, there was a power outage shortly after their arrival which saw the waiter pull an aluminium ladder out of the bushes, and him climbing the power pole to make some sort of adjustment. We're still telling ourselves that it must have just looked more dangerous then actually what it was.
We were woken the next morning at 4am by
dog's crying which was annoying but didn't really matter as we had to get up at 4:15am anyway, as the driver was returning at 5am. Whilst waiting for the driver we notices that an outdoor restaurant had set up across the road in what was a car park during the day, and that it was packed with locals even at this time of morning. We asked the driver if it was any good, thinking we might try it for dinner, but he insisted that it was for locals only and made us agree that we would not go there.
On arrival at Angkor it was still dark and we encountered even more people than the day before, however we could see where we were going due to all the camera flashes and other people with torches. We started to watch the sunrise from a distance, but instead decided to skip the crowds and headed straight into the main temple to watch it from there. We were so happy with our decision as this allowed us to get loads of photos without anyone else in them, and to look around before the masses entered.
Once again we met up
with our driver who took us to a local place for a breakfast consisting of noodles and stir-fry, and onto more temples. We do not know exactly how many temples we saw or climbed but we were going all day, and were amazed at every location we went to. Our driver really knew his stuff but was a bit chauvinistic, initially we thought he was just addressing Matt "Sir" as he had been doing the majority of the talking, but it soon became apparent that this was not the case when he ignored Trace on multiple occasions and opened Matt's door at every stop.
There is so much to say regarding the temples and local people selling things at them, that we are at a loss what to write for risk of boring everyone. We can however tell you that we did manage to take over 200 photos around the various sites, and we still do not tire looking at them.
We returned to the hotel about 6:30 pm where we noticed that the dogs next-door were gone, again we went to the main street for dinner and again we met up with the other's who had also
Matt at Sunrise
You could really hear that sun come up. spent the day at Angkor. We ate in a Khmer establishment which had traditional food and dancers, and headed back to the hotel early as we were sooooo tired. It was on our return that we noticed dogs back again next door, which we thought was odd. It didn't really occur to us what was going on until we heard the dog's distressed crying followed by silence again at 4am in the morning, which once again coincided with the local restaurant starting up again across the road?????????? This again occurred the next night which was our last before heading to Phon Phen.
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