Towering Tomb Rader Adventures

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Geo: 13.4691, 104.041

Our little 6hr bus journey, spines turned into a sweat bath, epic when our bus 'broke down' about an hr from our destination. As we were bombing down the road, the AC turned off and the engine cut out. He definitely ran out of fuel! Once fuel had arrived, courtesy of a man on ped, the damn thing still wouldn't start as the pipes had too much air in the apparently! 2hrs later with various helping from the people on the bus that know something about engines the engine finally came back to life! The rest of the journey was completed at wharp speed... I think the driver was pissed off!!!!On arrival.... now evening, our Guesthouse had arranged for tuk tuks to take us to their establishment. It was, what I would call a little rough around the edges... typically no hot water, a small room, with makeshift curtains and a bathroom door that would not shut, let alone lock... but you take the rough with the smooth! We all ate in the hotel restaurant that night as everyone was shattered! It was run by a lovely lady, who was very helpful and spoke very good English! I loved my rice and vegetables ... but others did not enjoy theirs! That evening, we signed ourselves up for a sunrise trip to Angkor Wat and the surrounding area... the supposed 8th wonder of the world... there seem to be alot of 8th wonders on this trip!!When the alarm went off it was definitely a 'I don't want to go to school today' moment.... 5am for sunrise is fine... 5am for dull cloud is not so great! After paying our $20 site entrance fee, and receiving our photo personalized tickets... surprise webcam photos should be banned at that time of the morning!!!! ... we arrived at Angkor Wat first. Green covered scaffolding greeted us! Brilliant! We were directed to the best place to see sunrise, however there were thousands there already, and with the amount of cloud in the sky it was not worth the wait, so a few of us decided to go around the perimeter of it whilst the crowds were elsewhere! Intact the side gates made for much better photos, as there was no scaffolding present! Needless to say there were Chinese around there, but once they had posed it was pretty much empty. We went from north gate to south gate and then ventured into the middle. The Stonemasonary on each, individual wall was incredible! Such detail. Many of the statues had been destroyed or looted during the Khmer Rouge madness, but a few still remained. It was like a little maze inside, with passageways going every which way and no entry signs where the building was unstable! Once we had escaped, the sun had come out, and so we went on another little detour to retake some external photos as well as a random adventure down, through the forest, on a muddy path, to the wall that bordered the moat. We also found a little troop of monkeys playing on the temple wall as we headed towards the exit, to find our tuk tuk drivers among hundreds!The next stop was Angkor Thom... the city of the ancient empire. Within it's grand walls, there are temples, palaces, tombs and processional roads, of which the most famous is Prasat Bayon.. the one with all of the stone heads. Again it took effort to find areas without people, but it was an incredible place, very peaceful, even in tourist hell. After a little stroll down
the Terrace of the elephants, we came to Baphuon. This was great, as it allowed you too the very top, even though iit was on man-made vertigo steps! Through the trees you could pick out various buildings and standing stones as well as the standard million tourists! Going down was precarious, but safely negotiated, and the search for food began. We headed through and passed many more ancient wonders on our way to the restaurant alley. The prices were extortionate, but that was to be expected, so we shared between 2s to keep us going til we reached civilization and normal se Asia food prices! And then off to the last destination on our Short tour Ta Prohm - the jungle temple. This was famous for the trees growing through the ruins, the roots sprawling over the brickwork, destroying the structure as it went. It was buried a reasonable distance into the jungle, but with the music of the mine victims band playing it was not to much of a mission in the midday heat. As we arrived there were hundreds of people bottle necked at the entrance. Once inside the inner wall, we off routed to see what was around the corner... best decision of the day. There was no one around there at all, it was a perfect tomb raider setting, with trees all over the shop and more derelict building than standing. We then entered the complex through a small tunnel and weaved our way to the tourism track. We found the famous tree that is on all of the postcards, but personally I thought there were better!Homeward... well Guesthouseward bound was the only thing on the itinerary after that. Having been out for 9 hrs, we were all ruined out. That, tired and starving, and as we were going out for Vicky and Polly's birthday that night, food and a nap were needed. My chicken curry however had other ideas and hated me! The night out for me did not last that long, as i felt like crap, so retired early... the others however did not get in til abt 2am so obviously had a wicked night!

The next day was spent eating in pub street, there was some good food down there! and shopping in the markets, although i did fail to buy anything but a nailpolish - day i say i am getting tired of markets?? In the evening though, we managed to catch a free, traditional dance show whilst we ate our dinner... the dances were so precise and beautiful... they must take an age to learn! The food didnt like me much again, but i still had a good evening!

Onto Thailand tomorrow! EEEEEEK!

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