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Published: January 29th 2009
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Elephants in Angkor
Our elephant is the one on the left Flic This was by far, the best day so far!
We'd organised the trip to Angkor Wat through our hostel, even though all the online reviews said not to, because that's the sort of stupid thing we do. It was probably a bit more expensive than we could have got it, but it was convenient and meant we could have a bit longer in bed! So we were up & fed, ready to leave by 7:45 and our tuk-tuk driver took us to Angkor Wat temple complex. We had to pay $20 entrance which is rather extortionate even by UK standards! But you can't come to Siem Reap and NOT go there, so we begrudgingly handed over our cash, had our photo taken and transferred onto a ticket, and hopped back in our tuk-tuk. Our driver was lovely, and he took us to every temple on the 1-day tour route. We could stop at each one for however long we wanted, and he'd wait patiently in the tuk-tuk for us.
The first temple we saw was the infamous Angkor Wat, and we were really lucky in that because we'd left so early, the place was pretty much empty
Jim at our favourite temple
Jim at our favourite temple (especially in comparison to later on in the day!) and it was stunning. When we can get pictures up, you can all see for yourselves. When we'd walked all the way through that temple & appeared the other side, we could see the stage they'd set up for a rock concert! Rather surreal! Then we had to walk all the way back to the entrance, constantly being bombarded by the phrase we have come to hate... "heeeeey madam/sir, you want cold driiiiiink?". Of course, there was the occasional "You buy postcaaaaard?"" and "You buy something please, yeeeees?" Why they all feel the need to speak in the same tone and stretch out the words at the end of their phrases is beyond me...
So we get back in our tuk-tuk and we're taken to the next temple. This one is different from the first as it has huge faces scultped into it which was rather cool. Once we'd looked round it, we decided to do the elephant ride around the outskirts! Again, it was quite expensive, but we're so good at spending money that this didn't seem like much of a problem to us...so we handed over our $15
Flic at our favourite temple
Flic at our favourite temple each, climbed the steps and were seated on top of our elephant! We nearly died a few times, nearly falling off, it was SO bumpy it's unbelievable, but it was extremely funny and good fun.
We spent the rest of the day looking round the other temples...I won't bore you with details of each. The one which stands out most is the one which was used for the filming of Tomb Raider. It was SO cool! There were trees growing over it, and through it, and under it...it was obviously the most popular one as about 5 minutes after we'd got there, it was PACKED! It was here that we met Sophie & Palmer, two English people, who were staying quite close to us and had just come from Thailand, before heading to Phnom Penh etc, so we sat in a temple exchanging travel advice!
We'd paid $5 extra to stay for the sunset, as everyone says it's spectacular, but sunset wasn't until about 6pm, and by 4, we'd seen all the temples on the 1-day tour! So our tuk-tuk driver took us to the bottom of the hill where it was said to be best to watch
Foot
Jims skanky foot after a day of walking in the dust with shoes that didnt fit properly...Lovely! the sunset, 2hrs before the sun would actually be setting.... We climbed the hill, the temple on top of the hill, and then sat on the edge, getting very numb bums for about 1 1/2hrs... and much to our disgust, the sunset was Appalling!! We've neevr seen anything so anti-climactic! The sun didn't even reach the horizon, just sunk behind a cloud, doing not a lot...and then everyone started clapping?!?! (except us, because we were still in shock about how appalling it was...) But, at least we can say we've seen it...
We ran off back down the hill, trying to avoid as much of the crowd as possible (it was PACKED) and hunted down our tuk-tuk in the maze of people and drivers. On the way out, we drove past some monkeys! So our driver pulled over so we could take photos. They were VERY cute!
Back at the hostel, we had a quick shower to get rid of the inches of dust we'd accumulated over the day, and headed off to the market place/backpacker area for dinner. We were walking to the ATM (surprise surprise, we'd run out of money) when we happened to walk past Sophie & Palmer, so we decided to meet in a local bar before going for dinner.
We ate in a particularly bizarre place, called Behind Bars, which modelled itself on a prison...as you do! After dinner, we went for ice cream (its no wonder we're so poor!) and then headed to the night market. We walked around for a while looking at all the wonderous things and moaning that we couldn't buy anything because we couldn't get it home, and then we stumbled across a pool type thing, filled with fish, with people sitting around the edge, dangling their feet in. Intrigued, we walked over, and saw that it was a fish foot massage! The little fish eat dead skin cells, so you put your feet in and they munch away on your dead skin! Sophie was well up for this and volunteered herself first, but eventually we all agreed to it, paid our money and stuck our feet in. I HATED it at first! My feet, as most of you are probably aware, are ticklish beyond description, so this was like hell for me! It took me around 10 minutes to stop screaming and fighting the urge to kick all the fish away. After that though, it was really relaxing! And the guys who ran it were soo funny. We'd all paid $2.50 for 15 mins (it was actually supposed to be more than this, but Palmer got the price down!) but we stayed in for 45mins-1hr before we felt guilty enough to drag ourselves away, with very soft and tingly feet. It was the perfect end to a pretty much perfect day =)
We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow to go to Bangkok, but we've decided to leave a day later so we can spend an extra day here =) So, we'll be getting to Bangkok on 31st Jan!
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Aunty Furry
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Now you do KNOW that even at your most DESPERATE, never to buy a drink that even LOOKS like the seal on the bottle has been broken, don't you??? When you get back I am SO going to get you for going to everywhere I haven't yet.... *fumes quietly* (this is only good for Jim. Flic can do as she likes......!)