Blogs from Angkor, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 16

We turned up in the city of Siem Reap where we had arranged for a relative of the owner of the last guest house to collect us from the bus station, when he did collect us he asked if we wanted to have a party at his home. (To be fair it sounds a trifle weird but I think it’s just the language barrier and translation issues). We arrived at his house which was just a one or two room bamboo hut, in a terrace with about 7 others. There was a large circular table laid out and his wife was cooking on the bbq grill outside. Let’s just say the food was a mixed bag, some was good like the pepper noodles and the home made beef and lime omelet, but some was horrid, it ... read more

So Vientiane was pretty uneventful. Just didn't seem like a lot was going on in that town and it was an easy decision to make it an overnight stopover. Next stop on the plan was Siem Reap in Cambodia. After checking a few travel options we learned that the only way to go direct to Cambodia is via a flight, or a 40 hour bus trip to the south of Laos. Neither option sounded so appealing. The flight sounded easy enough but it would automatically ruin the romantic notion of traveling overland through the region. Flights are definitely a last resort. Instead we decided to break up the journey by crossing back into Thailand and spending a couple of days in Bangkok. There are far worse fates than having to spend another couple days in that ... read more

A sultry Sunday here in Siem Reap, after a night of debauchery and jokes with some Australian friends, and jaded references to marketing " monk tours incorporated"" for bored middle aged Western woman, not to mention our requests for large banana salads. Our poor hapless young waiter kept cracking up; - his English was much better than I had initially assumed, unfortunately. Anyway back to temples, forget the monks, Deb, for a moment. A few days ago I discovered Preah Khan, which appears to have been more than a temple, and was once a Buddhist university, as well as a considerable city. References to a "lake of blood" indicate that Preah Khan was built on the site of a major battle in the recapture of Angkor from the Chams, and the Cham king died here. ... read more

Ankor Wat was amazing and our experience was helped by the very jolly tuk tuk driver we had who obviously thought we looked liked dizzy girls who could get lost around this vast ancient city, so every time we exited a temple he would be there waving frantically with a big Cambodian smile. We wandered in and around the temples - the cool damp stone once inside was a welcome relief from the burning midday sunshine. Cambodians clearly do not have the same priority for preservation as we do in the UK as you were practically allowed to climb everywhere! Some of the stairs up to the temples summit were extremely steep and I could not help giggling at Fliss at one point looking like a granny, balancing her pink bag looking like a tourist looser ... read more

Yesterday was my first Angkor Wat out and about tour experience, with me and a highly talkative tuk tuk driver, who although he was out to please me, he just also happened to irritate me quite a lot. For $3 extra he urged that we went 50km away to Kbal Spean, the river of 1000 Lingas;- a linga being the dick of the Indian god Shiva. So it is kind of like Dick River in the jungle. My Australian friend who actually hires this guy as her full- time driver had assured me that he was harmless. Nonetheless he spent the next two hours ranting that he was not married because he was too poor (I think that was the gist of it). Anyway since I was not married either, he thought that I should stay ... read more