Siem Reap and the Angkor Temples

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Day 57

Enjoying our relatively plush hotel in Sihanoukville, we spent the morning sunning ourselves by the pool until lunch before leaving for our 2pm flight. A tuk-tuk took us to the small airport where we boarded the propellor plane bound for Siem Reap.

The journey went smoothly, and on arrival we checked into the River Queen guesthouse before heading out to explore. The town was quite bustling, though mostly with tourists there for the temples, with various markets and a very lively bar street. For reasons unknown, we got talked into having a fish foot massage (which included a can of the local Angkor beer) and sat for half an hour drinking whilst fish nibbled our feet. Refreshed, we headed to a basic restaurant for another Amok curry before heading back to the guest house.

Day 58

After breakfast at the guesthouse, we had a bit of an explore in Siem Reap, which doesn't have a huge amount to offer, but visited quite a nice monestary.

In the afternoon we took a tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat for sunset (as tickets bought after 4pm are valid for the next day also) and had a couple of hours exploring the huge and spectacular temple. It was relativly quiet by this time, and a surreal experience exploring the place as the sun went down.

Amazed by Angkor Wat and looking forward to a full day of temple exploring tomorrow, we took the tuk-tuk back to town, had Lok Lak for dinner and headed back for a rooftop bathe before bed!

Day 59

The alarm went off at 4:30 am and we were shortly back on our tuk-tuk headed to Angkor Wat. We were apparently not the only ones, as there was a strange procession of weary-eyed-tourist laden tuk-tuks headed towards the temples. We arrived within half an hour and took our place in front of Angkor Wat. The setting was not exactly tranquil or romantic, with hundreds of people, many armed with impressive looking cameras, but this didn't take away from the the incredible sight of the big orange sun rising from behind the temple, and the awesome image of the silhouetted temple against the multicoloured sky.

After soaking up the view as the sun rose, we headed back to the tuk to start our tour of around ten of the main temples at the Angkor site. We started with Angkor Thom, the Bayon, the Elephant Terrace and Ta Prohm, which was the set for some scenes in the Tomb Raider film, and was particularly interesting. We then had lunch before visiting Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Meak Poan and Preah Khan. All of which were unique and amazing buildings. In the evening we watched the sunset which is a very popular thing to do, but was actually not overly impressive compared to the sunrise.

Fifteen hours after we had left, exhausted, we arrived back at the hostel and napped for a couple of hours. We were soon back on our feet and at the well known Angkor What? bar, where we had a few bevies (including a bucket of whisky and coke) with a Swiss couple we got talking to. We headed back around 2pm and Mark, clearly a little worse for wear, walked face first into a glass door in the hostel, before we made it to bed.

It had been an amazing day, and tomorrow, we head to our final destination in Asia, Bangkok.

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Photos

Leaving Sihanoukville
Tuk tuk taxi to the airport!

At the Tomb Raider temple!
Ta Prohm

Crazy tree roots!
Ta Prohm

Another temple!
We lost track of all the different names!!

Angkor What? Bar
It was all downhill from here!