Big Circuit of Angkor Temples in a Siem a Reap

---

Today we finally let ourselves sleep in and wake up according to our own body clocks. Even after going to bed at an early hour, we still managed to sleep until 10am.



It was our last full day in Siem Reap and tomorrow we were getting picked up early once again, to head to Koh Chang island back in Thailand.



Today we were off to do the "large circuit" with temples more spread out, and less more off the beaten track. We decided we didn't really need a guide for today's temples, and it would be nice to wander around and just soak it all in on our own.



Of course, our tuk tuk driver, Heng, was the one to take us around from temple to temple.



Right off the bat when we saw him he made sure to ask about my leg. His English was pretty broken but he made a point to make sure I was doing okay.



Before we took off for the temples, we needed to find a home. We didn't book a hotel ahead of time for our last night in Siem Reap, so we relied heavily on HostelWorld.com & TripAdvisor and narrowed the hunt down to a few. The first hotel didn't seem ike it was close enough to the city center so we moved on to the next. With all 5 star reviews, we pulled up to a boutique hotel with a beautiful pull and entrance way, excited to see what was next. At only $15/night I guess you can't expect much, but the pool area was so nice, we figured this was a steal! The stairs were funny, they looked like they belonged in a high school--totally out of place. The rooms were EH, pretty clean, but not spectacular. We wouldn't be here much and were leaving early so we took the room. As we put our stuff down, we noticed the bathroom floor was wet, and we had ZERO towels. Zilch. Maybe they don't give you towels at places like this?



The temples today we decided were almost just as amazing as the other more touristy temples in the smaller circuit. And it was just so nice not having any crowds to deal with ! As a part of our Big Circuit tour we had our tuk tuk driver take us to see East Mebon, Ta Som, Pre Rup, Neak Pean and Preah Khan



Much less restored, there were piles and piles of ancient rock and carvings that at one time were standing as a part of the temple. It almost made it more beautiful this way-- It felt so untouched and pure.



More huge banyan trees here, growing straight out of the temples themselves, taking over the faces of ancient carvings.



Neak Pean was our next stop. It wasn't exactly a temple you could walk into, but the surroundings that led up to the temple ruins were breath-taking! You are led into the jungle, and only a few meters in, the thick jungle opens up as you walk down a narrow pier-like walk way. You're surrounded by very shallow marsh lands that felt so different than any other area we had visited thus far. There was a layer of fog just lingering over the water. It felt almost like a haunted forest, but in the best way possible.



About half way through our large temple circuit, Heng dropped us off at Preah Khan which is one of the largest temple complexes in the big circuit. He said he would pick us up on the other side after we wandered through the whole thing. Easy enough?



We bought a fresh coconut from one of the vendors in the jungle and started wandering towards the temple (not knowing just how huge this one was!)



It started immediately DOWN POURING! Of course, the one time we didn't bring our portable rain jackets.



We were so unbelievably hot and sweaty that we warmly welcomed the rain. We were taking refuge under a huge tree and watching the rain just pour down, creating massive mud puddles.



It didn't seem to be easing up really at all, so we decided to make a run for the temple (down a long and muddy pathway) for cover. Slipping and sliding around in the mud, and trying to protect the coconut from the rain--you can't dilute the coconut juice!-- we finally made it.



It's a funny moment when you're running out of the rain and the only place to escape is a temple thousands of years old...



It was still really coming down ! At this point we had only crossed the moat and were hiding in the small gate house building--we had a long walk in the mud before we would even reach the main temple of this complex.



We just decided to brave it. And of course right after making it across the muddy pathway into the temple, the blue skies reappeared and all the rain deceased.



We really liked this temple. It was HUGE with hardly any people, and huge piles of temple rubble. We had a great time just poking around the massive temple ruins, imagining what this place must have looked like in its prime...It's big enough to house an entire small army !



If I were Laura Croft in the Tomb Raider, this would have definitely been the tomb I'd raid. There were so many rooms and areas not yet discovered with thousands of pounds of rubble covering the ground.



Once we wandered through this last temple, there was Heng waiting for us.



By now it was late afternoon. On our tuk tuk ride back we passed an area on the side of the road with probably 50+ monkeys !



There was a little fruit stand next to the monkey gang that was selling cactus like fruits with little seeds in it. Apparently monkeys love this fruit !



We made a quick pitstop to watch them. There were a couple people feeding them the seeds, and at first we were too nervous--some of the monkeys were HUGE with big old fat bellies.



Eventually we gave in and bought a couple of the fruits they were selling. The monkeys were everywhere, and they especially loved climbing on parked motorbikes to get closer to you and the food.



They just grabbed the little seed right out of your hand with their tiny monkey hands.



Everything was going well and I was feeding this adorable little baby monkey on the ground, when one of the big daddies swooped up from the side and grabbed 2 out of my 4 fruits !!! I obviously didn't want to argue with him and try to pull my fruit back so I just let him be a fatty and eat all the fruit I had bought. I still had one pod with seeds in it and was happily feeding the cute babies until another one just grabbed it, right out of my hands.



Lauren happened to get a photo montage of the big fat monkey sneaking up to steal the fruit. Quite funny. They were adorable.



We wandered around our neighborhood to find a restaurant, but it was around 4, so a strange time to be eating...We settled on this cute restaurant that was a part of a boutique hotel. Greeted by a man and woman with big smiles, we sat down and per usual, we were the only people in the restaurant. It was strange because they kept telling us "we have a pool too!"...even after we told them we were just here to eat.



We sat down and were STARVING. We each ordered one item and an appetizer. Our adorable waitress was full of smiles and said "Oh! Very hungry?"...I guess so ! She mentioned the pool again, and said "if you want to go in, I can bring you your food!". It sounded nice, but we definitely did not have bathing-suits on. We then asked her for a drink menu. A pina colada sounded pretty delicious in this scorching heat. As we told her we each wanted a drink as well, she couldn't keep in her giggles. It was 4pm ! That's not too early to have a drink while on vacation...She thought something about us was very funny though. From then on, everything we did made her laugh. When she brought us our food, she laughed...when she brought us our drinks she REALLY laughed..



It was SO funny! We felt like aliens, or like we must have had broccoli in our teeth! She just could not stop giggling at us. She was young and cute though so it didn't bother us at all.



With just enough time to for a quickd dip in the pool at our own hotel, we got ready to hit the streets again to go meet our UCSB friends ! Getting ready in this hotel was...interesting...We realized they didn't even provide towels for us! And the shower was placed in such a way that you literally had to stand in the corner of the bathtub, and the water pressure was the WORST we've experienced thus far.



Our friends were staying at a hotel pretty close to us, but it was one of two hotels with very similar names across town from each other. We were aware of this, and tried to warn our tuk tuk driver of this, and we even whipped out the map and showed him the street names!



Alas, I don't think he really looked at the map, and soon we were in the wrong neighborhood and we knew it. He was by far THE craziest tuk tuk driver we've had yet. He definitely did not check before he made any turns or "lane" changes.



Overall the drivers are even crazier here in Siem Reap than they were in Thailand (which seems pretty unbelievable because they are very crazy in Thailand). There are only 3 stoplights in town and definitely no stop signs. Even at the stoplights the people don't really abide by any rules, and everyone just kind of goes -- cars, tons of motorbikes, and tuk tuks. At least they drive on the right side of the road here? In thailand they drive on the 'wrong' side of the road to us. Cambodian drivers seem to drive on whichever side of the road they feel like. Consistently driving in the wrong lane to pass pedestrians, motos, cars or other tuk tuks, it's real-life Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.



Eventually our driver stopped ot ask a fellow tuk tuk driver for directions, and we tried to show him them map again which may or may not have helped. There was a definite language barrier, but after watching our lives flash before our lives a couple of times being huddled in the back of the tuk tuk (no seat belts) we eventually made it to their hotel.



It felt like a little slice of home seeing a few of our friends from college!



We headed out to Pub street for some food and drinks. We wandered around, the boys tried some very adventurous street food -- Some sort of barbecued snake that looked extremely chewy and gross. This food stand also had huge crickets (classic Southeast Asia) as well as huge beetles and tarantulas !!!



We took the boys to a fish spa on the street with fish a LOT larger than the ones we initially had in Chiang Mai. We all sat in a large communal fish tank and watched catfish sized fish naw on our dead skin.



After the fish spa we decided to check off another bucket list item -- eating the DURIAN fruit!!! We had heard so many rumors about this fruit that is said to have an odor is bad that many hotels throughout Thailand have banned the fruit! The last place we stayed had a $50 fine (a lot of money in Thai,and!) if the fruit was even brought into the hotel. It was funny because we didn't know exactly how to est it, we had just heard that inside the spiky, tough shell was a pudding like textured fruit… the dull fruit is quite large so we saw a few pieces on his cart that looked like smaller doses (probably more manageable) of the faithful Dorian fruit. We were trying to tell the vendor that we would like those small pieces, but after going back and forth (he didn't speak much English...) we realize that we had been pointing to only the rind of the fruit !! The man must have thought we were such idiots as we tried to pay him for the rind of the durian fruit !! We were wondering why it wasn't smelling to horribly...after that problem was solved he cut us open an entire fruit with a machete. The sterile rotting garbage smell was so pungent that you didn't have to be anywhere near the fruit to smell it! The taste was...interesting. Very very sweet and very similar to a pudding texture. This fruit was a bizarre ride for all our senses!



There were plenty of people walking around in the streets, but I'm not sure where they all go because each restaurant only had a few people dining there ! I guess this is just the slow "rainy" season.



We took a seat at a bar/restaurant and before we could even order any drinks, something SO strange happened. A couple Cambodian men and one woman who spoke English and claimed to be from Boston approached our table. It was hard to fully understand them but they asked if we had tried Cambodian beer yet. I guess the big names of beer here are "Cambodian" and "Anchor" (not the Anchor we know and love from California).



The woman just outwardly said "This man would like to buy youi all Cambodian beer"...We had all just been talking about getting scammed because the boys got scammed in the same way we did in Bangkok...



We all looked at each other like, What's the catch...? Then Lauren leans over to me and goes "oh my gosh why are there SO many people?!?!?!?" I looked to my right and realized our table was completely surrounded by this group of 30+ Cambodian people ! Most of which were women, just standing there, not speaking, but just smiling...So here we are in a bar/restaurant in Cambodia, with 2 men clamining they will give us all each a free beer and wearing some sort of Cambodian beer t-shirts, with the remaining 25+ people dressed in normal attire and not speaking. As we looked around, we felt like we were being surrounded by a band of gypsies.



Who says no to free beer?



We said bring it on, and the bartender brought out 6 tall glass bottles of Cambodian beer. The massive crew of Cambodians were all standing just watching us as we poured the beer into glasses to try the taste. All eyes were on us. "It's good!...Really good!" we were all saying, in fear of whatever backlash may occur had we said it was bad.



Cheers and smiles filled the restaurant once we approved of the Cambodian beer. They then asked if we could take a picture with them, so the 25 Cambodians surrounded our table as we all cheers-ed our new best friends.



Our one regret was not getting a copy of that photo. We will never know what it looked like, until we become the poster children for Cambodian beer. Everything happened so fast like a whirlwind and we were all worried about protecting ourselves and our belongings in fear of getting robbed by Cambodian gypsies. Little did we know, I guess these people were just promotors of some sort. One claimed to be the owner, but who knows if that's really true.



In awe, we just watched the huge mob move to the one other group of people in the restaurant as they gave them all free beers and took a CHEERS photo...One of the weirder things that has happened on our trip for sure.



After dinner, it was only 10pm but the restaurant was closing up and kicking us out. We had a private car picking us up at the hotel at 7am to go to Koh Chang, so the boys walked us home down a few dark alley ways, and we called it a night. Tomorrow, crossing the Cambodian border and on to Island life !!

---