Days 20-23: Siem Reap, Cambodia

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A day into our stay in Siem Reap and we already like it far more than most places we visited in Vietnam. As I write this, it was a balmy 35 degrees today and the rest of the forecast for the week is between 35-38 degrees and sun every day - nice! We finally found the need to invest in sunscreen, and found that all we could get was SPF 50…. Guess they think all us white-skinned tourists burn fairly easily! ;-)

There’s just a different feel to being here than there was in Vietnam, can't quite put our finger on it though. Don’t get us wrong, its still a poor town which is rather dirty and has the occasional “interesting scents” like any 3rd world, south-east asian town, but the dusty streets seem far nicer than the filthy concrete of the big cities in Vietnam. It's a combination of friendly and welcoming people, awesome weather, fascinating temples, the religions and the dirt cheap pricing everywhere! And we love travelling by the tuk tuks here, which as you can imagine are again different from every other "tuk tuk" we've travelled on - seems that every asian country (even town) has "tuk tuks" - they just vary completely what they actually are! ;-)

Coke, at just 35c a can, is finally cheaper than beer which starts at about 40c a can….. guess that’s good or bad depending on whether you’re a beer drinker or not ;-) And the alcohol at the superettes, we’re talking 40 oz bottles here, is so ridiculously cheap we can hardly believe our eyes! We’re talking 40 oz bottles of Absolute Vodka for $16NZD and Malibu and Kahlua for $14NZD! Woohoo! Everything is in USD here, while in most places in Vietnam the pricelists were in Vietnamese Dong AND US dollars, here there’s virtually no mention of the local currency. Even the ATMs produce US dollars!

We went to Phnom Bakheng temple (late 9th-early 10th century) last night for sunset and it was spectacular, albeit crowded with hundreds of tourists doing the exact same thing! Managed to get some really good shots though and clambered all over the ruins to get some funny ones too ;-) Then we woke up at 5am today to get to Angkor Wat (early-mid 12th century) for sunrise, also awesome and HUGE! What's cool is that the temples are all so different, and all spectacular in their own ways. Probably our favourite was Preah Khan (late 12th century) which we went to today after Angkor Wat and Bayon. Luckily for us we beat most of the crowds here and got heaps of wacky pics, including of Sheepy! Yes, when there's only one other person to take pics of you start getting a bit loopy ;-)

Tonight we're going to one of Angelina Jolie's fave restaurants in Siem Reap, and by the way the Cambodian children are soooooooooooooooooooooo gorgeous! I completely understand now why she wanted to take one home! ;-)

Tomorrow its a 24hr journey from our hotel doorstep to Joburg airport - bring on those sleeping pills!

Will start loading photos soon!

Til later… us

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Photos

Hotel room
Ahh Sheepy....

Long Island Ice Tea
in a bottle?..... 10% and made by the Aussies too!