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Published: February 19th 2011
Hi,
The 17th began with a 4 hour journey to the border, our crossing point was Poipet. We jumped off our lovely air-conned mini-bus and made our way across, our bags had already been taken across by a local and his cart, it was hot and sticky as we stood at the Thai departures line, luckily it was early enough for it to be quiet so our wait wasn't too long. We crossed the bridge into Cambodia and the form filling began. health questionnaire's and arrival information was supplied and we were in!
Next was a bus to Siem Reap, it took only a few hours and we stopped off for lunch on the way, we both had Lokke Lak beef with rice. A nice beer washed it down.
We are staying at Angkor PHC, its nice but nowhere near as nice as Bangkok Centre Hotel. We don't really mind as we've hardly spent anytime here, that night was a definite highlight so far. We went to a local village to have tea and walk around seeing how people live, our guide took us round the plantations and rice fields, there was no rice growing now as it's
Ta Prohm
Famous scene from tomb raider, where Angelina Jolie steps out in her short shorts!too dry but plenty of sweetcorn nearly ready for harvest. Our tea was a feast of vegetable curry, noodles with pork, hot and sour soup, steamed rice, stir fried vegetables and chicken with ginger. the local delicacy of fish paste with green mango was also passed around but the distinct smell of wet dog was so strong neither of us could bring our self to try it. As it got darker we were swamped by hundreds of insects all of them seemingly biting Kim, so we made a hasty retreat to the night market with Kim determined to get a scarf.
We wandered around looking for a scarf which every stall seemed to sell, she picked out a nice traditional Khmer scarf for $1, we headed for home with a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
18th Feb
The day began at 5 a.m. we were up and heading for Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise, our guide Mr James told us not to be hopeful as there had been no sun for the past few days, he was right, it was too cloudy and the sun didn't show 😞 but it was still amazing to
see this monument appear from the darkness.
we left before the crowds arrived and headed for Ta Prohm, the temple made famous by the Tomb raider movie. It looked as if the jungle was eating the temple as trees were sprouting from all over knocking down walls and destroying roofs. From here we headed back to Angkor Wat, which by now should of quietened down. After a few hours inside the walls learning its history, like 6,000 soldiers clearing the trees away we went to Angkor Tohm, the capital city of the old Khmer empire. Here we went to the Temple Bayon, or the temple of faces. 54 towers with 4 faces each make up this impressive structure. The heat was getting unbearable so we went for lunch, it was around half 1 now and we'd been up for nearly 7 hours.
Lunch was at a small restaurant facing Angkor Wat, we both ordered the onion and garlic dish except i had squid and Kim had shrimp, Kim was hoping the garlic would stop her being bitten. Our guide Dara came over with a local delicacy, Hot and sour morning glory and red ant soup. Morning glory is
just another name for water spinach and yes the ants were actual ants. We both tried it which i thought was very brave of Kim, it was nice as well but a bit too spicy for me.
After lunch we visited the floating village, it is out on Cambodia's massive lake and is made up of mostly Vietnamese people, they live on boats with a house perched on top. getting to and back from the village we travelled along the river which had every side full of houses on stilts. This was to keep them out of the monsoon floods.
Back at Angkor PHC we only had an hour to shower and meet for tea, Kim still managed a 45 minute nap! Tea was another mixture of dishes, sticky rice, tom yan soup, tempura veg, caramelised corn, deep fried peanuts, grilled snapper, grilled mackeral - both with glass noodles and strangely enough steak and chips. The most adventurous was frogs with lemongrass, chilli and basil, eaten whole, bones and all. Kim chickened out and picked the meat from the bones. The whole meal was great and only came to $5 including beer.
Next was bedtime as we
travel to Phnom Penh the next day and we were both proper tired.
See ya next time.
Dan
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Carolyn Reid
non-member comment
Sounds like you guys are having an amazing time!!! Not enough roughing it for my liking though hotels?? Want to see some pictures next time you update. Keep having fun. Miss you loads! :) Carolyn xx