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Published: July 13th 2007
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July 13 - 16
Friday the 13th, we got up early to catch our minivan to the Cambodian border. It was a comfortable van with a few other travelers. After a few hours, we reached the border, which took a few hours to get through - we eventually found our way to the bus. Immediately apparent was the major difference in infrastructure between Cambodia and Thailand - In Cambodia, we drove another 6 hours on a bumpy dirt road towards Siem Reap. Call it a Cambodian massage, or call it a scam - there was a guy from some guest house who makes the trip to the Thai border once a week to get people to stay at their place. We got into town at 8pm, which could be part of the scam as we were really too tired to search out anything else - whatever, the room only cost $2.50 each, it was clean and the other travelers there were a lot of fun.
We met our new friend Carrie from England on the bus to Siem Riep - she's so much fun! (We've continued traveling with her with to Phnom Penh.) We also met Dirk and
Esme, who are teachers in Holland, traveling for 5 weeks on their summer break in southeast Asia. They are hilarious - and very helpful and patient in my ongoing half-assed attempt to learn Dutch... There was also this fun guy Darragh from Ireland, who is still recovering from an awful motorbike accident on Ko Pha Ngan, and these 2 sweet French guys, Martin and Antoine, who have also had their share of the travel injuries (Martin broke both wrists falling from a building in Ko Pha Ngan, and Antoine cut open his head, collapsing after a too-relaxing neck massage at the bar one night in Siem Reap). We also met this quiet and clueless older guy, Gary, who had never left Australia before a few days prior. (Making conversation, he asked if we knew how much 10,000 Baht was in Australian dollars - about $350 - because that's what he had paid for a "massage" in Bangkok. We're not sure if he actually made it to Angkor Wat as he sort of went his own way once we got to Siem Reap - We think he probably wasn't in Southeast Asia for the temples...)
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Siem Reap, which is
Khmer for "Siam Defeated" is the wealthiest town in Cambodia and thrives on tourism to the famous temples of the Angkorian empire - Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other beautiful ancient temples. There are a zillion upscale hotels and cheap guest houses - in the city itself, everything is clean and the roads are paved. The center of town includes Pub Street, aka Bar Street, with a ton of good restaurants and bars.
The Temples of Angkor
Day 1: Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom We bought 3 day passes to the temples and hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around. The first day we headed out with our new friend Carrie. We went to see the ancient city of Angkor Thom, built by the empire's greatest king, Jayavarman VII around the year 1200. The monument of Bayon features 216 gigantic faces and numerous bas reliefs. Angkor Thom used to be the center of the empire, close to the famous Angkor Wat built by Suryavarman II 70 years earlier in honor of Vishnu. It is absolutely breathtaking! Throughout the temple you can walk up the steep stone steps to the top - it's a bit dizzying
by the time you reach the top, but the views are amazing.
Day 2: Ta Phrom, Ta Keo, Thomonon and Preah Khan The next day I headed out with our other new friends from Holland, Dirk and Esme to see Ta Phrom - it was built in the 12th century, but here they did not remove the gigantic jungle trees growing on top of it. It is incredible to see the trunks and roots growing right out of this Mahayana Buddhist temple - and as we learned the film Tomb Raider was filmed here.
We later headed to Ta Keo, the monument built a couple hundred years earlier by Jayavarman V. It was never finished, so it is not embellished with the sculptures and reliefs you can see at the other temples. But you can still climb right up to the top for an amazing view. Next was Thomonon, which was a smaller temple nearby.
Finally, we visited Preah Khan, which means "sacred sword" and was used to house more than a 1000 monks. They suspect it was a Buddhist university. It started to drizzle as we walked into the labyrinth of stone chambers. When it started
to rain harder, we took cover in one of the chambers - thinking that we might be able to wait it out. The problem was that the drainage in this 1000 year old monument is quite poor. By the time we decided to turn around and work our way out, most of the floors were puddles and we got soaked to the bone. At the every end, we needed to walk through a gigantic puddle more than a foot deep. It was kinda funny, but in the humid air, the clothes don't dry.
Day 3: Sunrise at Angkor Wat, Banteay Srei, East Mabon, Ta Som, Neak Pean, Preah Khan (again) The final day the 5 of us began at Angkor Wat to see the beautiful sunrise. Heaps of tourists gathered at the prime photo spot, featuring the reflection of the monument on the water. Then we headed out to Banteay Srei, which was about an hour by tuk tuk in the Cambodian countryside. It was very cool - said to be built by women, it is a beautiful monument of pink sandstone. Later we headed to Ta Som, which was a slightly smaller monument, then to Neak Pean
which featured enormous ghats. We later revisited Preah Khan, this time hoping not to get drenched.
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After 3 days checking out the temples near Siem Reap, we got a boat with Carrie down to Phnom Penh...
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