Kratie to Angkor

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Day 8
Last Saturday we took the 7am bus back to Phnom Penh where we collected our left luggage, stayed the night only to take off on Sunday morning on yet another long bus ride. This time 5 hours to Battembang. This was a very prosperous looking colonial style town. We stayed in another lovely big old Chinese hotel. Three beds in a room...fan , balcony on the top floor for $10 total.

Then this morning we were up early ... vegetarian fried rice and black tea at 6am! then a long boat up the river to Siem Reap.There were about 10 passengers and three crew. Two professional Chinese women in their 30s (one works in a telecom company) two charming 21 year old Sino American uni students from New York. The journey took 5 hours through all kinds of agricultural land including most luxuriant and extensive mariuhana crops! Lots of dirt poor water villages and some signs of prosperity... like TV aerials! They must have generators. One thing I have noticed is that not only do most places outside the towns lack fridges (drinks are stored in often rather grubby eskies with ice ) but therefore there is no ice cream!

So here we are at Siem Reap. Our hotel in Battembang arranged our accommodation here in a nice guest house so we were met at the landing place by a tuk tuk driver. Here they only have two wheels on the trailer. Even more scary! The driver spoke good English so we have engaged hime to take us around for the next few days.

Started with sunset at one of the high temples. He is coming at 5am tomorrow to atake us to the main temple the actual Angkor Wat for sunrise. So I shall stop here and go and take my malaria pill with dinner and go to sleep.

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Photos

boat to Siem Reap
WE CHOSE TO TRAVEL FROM bATTEMBANG TO sIEM rEAP, THE TOWN NEAREST THE RUINS OF THE aNGKOR cOMPLEX OF RUINS BY THE TRADITIONAL FORM OF TRANSPORT.