Tomb Raiders

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Siem Reap is the town for you if you're planning to follow in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie and explore Angkor Wat, although I'm pretty sure that there were no tuk-tuks involved in her case. We arrived by boat, crossing Tongle Sap, SE Asia's largest freshwater lake. We became uncomfortably aware of this fact as the boat spluttered to a halt out of sight of any land. Fortunately, repairs were effected and no swimming or rowing was required on our parts. On the way we passed the floating villages, although there was not much to float in, as it is dry season and the level of the lake is low. Some of the floating houses looked pretty well equipped, with electricity and satellite TV. The journey into town was interesting, clearly there are a lot of poor people in Cambodia, but we also passed beautiful fields of lotus flowers.

When we eventually left the comfort of the hotel, the town is pretty cute with some decent markets and lots of places to eat. I'm going to be controversial and say that the Khmer food we had was not as good as the food in Singapore, Malaysia or even Phuket! However, this was made up for to some extent by the easy availability of $2 cocktails. I am developing a taste for white russians. In fact the town was so pleasant, and the hotel so nice, that we extended our stay to eight nights!

Angkor Wat is amazing. The pictures don't really give you a sense of scale, the whole area of the archaeological site is huge, and there are many different huge temples. It is completely spectacular and I would recommend anyone to visit. Walking through temples in the middle of the jungle is very atmospheric. We went in on 3 days, and saw all of the main temples, as well as the West Bayon temple, which is reached by boat, as it is in the middle of one of the giant reservoirs that were built as part of the whole complex.

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Photos

A temple
Who knows which one?

Don't worry...
You can still bring your grenades