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Published: April 15th 2007
After only seeing the insides of the Angkor What bar for my first couple of days in Siem Reap, I was well overdue to go and check out the real thing. It was the reason why I came here in the first place…not the cheap buckets!!
I hired a bicycle and made my way to one of the worlds most famous world heritage sites Angkor Wat.. Hiring a bike was a great idea after to talking to fellow tourists at 2am at the bar who’d done the “temple thing “on bikes the previous day. Making the around 25km round trip and climbing over temples, nursing a hangover as the temperature soared above the 35 degree mark wasn’t the wisest decision I’ve ever made considering it only cost $12 to hire a motodriver for the day..If you bump into a guy called Lance Armstrong at the bar don’t believe a word he says…
Apart from the nearly dying from heat exhaustion the temples themselves were amazing taking into consideration that were built so long ago ( in between the 9th and 15th century to be in fact! ;-) impressive hey????) but the old “once you’ve seen one you’ve
seen them all” syndrome kicked in. I made the mistake of checking out the biggest and the best first so it was all down hill from there but all in all pretty impressive stuff.
Angkor Wat “the big one”! Tens of thousand s of slaves died building this one so I’m pretty happy I wasn’t around back in those days, especially in these weather conditions!!
Faces of Bayon..My favorite as it had the creepy feeling that you’re being watched all the time. You actually are getting watch by at least 5 “Faces” anywhere on the site. There are 200 faces all up around the place… (Starting to know my stuff…just don’t ask me to go into detail!)
Angkor Thom and “that”! Tree the second most photographed in the world….
The Khmer Rouge did their best to bugger the place up by defacing all the Buddha’s and blowing up the odd temple but heaps of restoration work is happening which will make the place even better viewing in years to come
One of the highlights of the day was that I did see some monkeys trashing a flash Toyota land cruiser (who left the window down??) much to
the dismay of the owner and his family. They were at their destructive best breaking mirrors and jumping up and down on the roof. Very entertaining for me but unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures for fear that the monkeys would make me their next target…I don’t trust monkey’s…They’re thinkers
Tips for potential temple viewers
1, don’t ride a pushbike out there if you’ve got a hangover.
2, if you hire a car, don’t leave the window down.
3 Don’t climb up the temple stairs behind too many people. Accidents are common.
www.albyadventures.com
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honkey
non-member comment
You can take the boy out of Bodd, but ya can't take the Bodd out of the boy..
Good to see that you still won't let a good nights drinking get in the way of a historical learning experience! Keep up the good work son.