Angkor What?!

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Eeep, haven't written anything down in a while. Have just got on a 4 hour bus to Sihanoukville so will try and remember what's been going on..
So we got to Siem Reap, the hotel was good. We just chilled for the rest of the day, went out for dinner and then to a night market. I'm no good at haggling with the market traders!! We then went for a beer in a karaoke bar and went back to the hotel. The next morning we got up at half 4 to go to the Buddhist temple Angkor Wat for sunrise. It was beautiful, but there were so many people there! Took loads of pictures although none will capture how pretty it was. I found a cat that wanted to sit on my lap and had a proper Cambodian coffee. We then regrouped and got back on the bus to go to a different temple. This one was called the jungle temple as it's been overrun by trees growing out of it, causing it to crumble. This was also the temple that they filmed Tomb Raider at in 2000. I thought this was the most beautiful of the temples, I liked the fact that nature had taken over. The pictures of this one came out really well. We then went to Bayon temple. This one was amazing too, with the iconic four faced Buddha monuments at the top. However it was super hot and full of Chinese tourists, which spoilt the atmosphere a bit! They had elephants walking round the outside of it, you could pay for a ride around, we didn't as we're still not sure where our morals sit with this. We also climbed up some VERY steep stairs to get to the middle of one of the towers. Getting up was ok, getting down was a bit more tricky. Lop, our Gadventures guide made it look so easy, he must be part gecko. We then went back to Ankhor Wat for a wander about. Some of the carvings from the 12th century were amazing! We got a bit bored of walking after a while so found a shady spot to sit and eat a whole packet of dolly mixtures. We then went to a local restaurant for lunch, I had Thai fried rice with pork and shrimp, washed down with a large Cambodian beer. We then went back to the hotel for a nap before getting up again to go Quad Biking through the local villages and between the Paddy fields to watch the sunset. That was good fun and the sunset was beautiful. We then went out for dinner and a few drinks, well a few drinks turned into a lot of drinks, ending in me deciding it would be a great idea to get cocktail buckets. This was a bad shout. My hangover the next day was brutal. And we had a 7 hour bus journey to do on unfinished roads. Ouch. Sally looked after me well though. I slept the whole way to Phnom Penh. Woke up and felt right as rain. Ate some pringles and went back to sleep again!
When we got to the capital city of Phnom Penh we went out for dinner. I have been ordering new things to try every meal, but tonight I just ordered chips...! Had a cider and went back to the hotel for bed, it was about half 10 by the time we'd finished dinner. The next day we got up early to get the bus to S21, one of the prisons/torture areas of the Khymer Rouge regime of the 1970's. It was really powerful. The areas that the prisoners were held in was tiny, only just long enough to lay down in, and maybe twice as wide as their body. They were shackled and chained and fed very little. We learnt about how they were tortured by the guards and then all sent to the killing fields to be killed. I had little idea about the Khymer Rouge before we went, it just seems barbaric that this was allowed to happen as recently as 35 years ago. A quarter of the population of Cambodia died during this time. There were pictures of the people that died everywhere, a bit like mugshots that the guards had taken. Although most of the documentation of those who had been killed was destroyed before the end of the regime, so we will never truly know how many were held there. We then got back on the bus and went to the Killing Fields or Cheoung Ek. This is where the prisoners were sent to be murdered. They mostly cut their throats as shooting them would have been too loud and people would have found out about the place. They also hit children on a tree, known as the Killing Tree, until they died then threw them in a pit just by it. The tree is now covered in bracelets and bits of thread as a memorial. Most of the bodies from this field have been exhumed, but some remain there. On the path there were bones that had come to the surface when it had rained. The bones didn't worry me so much, but it was seeing bits of clothing just under the surface that got me a bit. They've built a big memorial in the middle of the field which now houses the bones of the dead. It's an interesting way to display them, as all the skulls are lined up in massive windows.
After the killing fields we went for lunch. We went to a restaurant run by a project to get the local kids into cooking. The food was amazing!! Like fresh tapas, me and Sally shared three dishes between us, a beef fillet with wasabi and chive flowers, a mango coleslaw with root vegetable crisps and some shrimp wontons with sweet chilli sauce. We ate the lot. Even the leaves. Of course washed down with a large beer. Me and Sally went on our own to the Palace where the King lives some of the time. It was beautiful, but we had to cover up as part of the dress code and were so hot that we didn't stay too long. We went back to the hotel for a beer in the rooftop pool before getting a boat down the Mekong river to watch the sunset. It's a hard life!!! We then went to the FCC for a drink and possibly dinner but the prices were easily twice what you'd pay everywhere else, so we just had a cocktail. Then me and Sally went back to the hotel by 9 for an early night. Too much activity for me!
This morning we've got up early again to get the bus to Sihanoukville for an afternoon of relaxing on the beach and working on our tans. Marvellous.
TTFN.

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