Siem Reap - Temples of Angkor

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"There is a magical aura about Cambodia that casts a spell on many who visit this charming yet confounding kingdom. Here you can ascend to the kingdom of the gods at Angkor Wat, a spectacular fusion of symbolism, symmetry and spirituality, or you can descend into the hell of the Tuol Sleng, and come face to face with the Khmer Rouge and their killing machine. Welcome to the conundrum that is Cambodia, an intoxicating place with a glorious past, a tragic present and an unwritten future."

Lonely Planet on Cambodia.

A very big thank you to Mama Jean for helping out with the last sections of the blog. As we said our sorry farewells to Jean and Rory in Krabi we began to make plans of the next leg of our journey. We had decided to head back to Bangkok and head east across the border into Cambodia. We jumped on another over night bus from the South of Thailand back to the Capital. A note to all travellers using VIP coaches around Thailand - Keep all money and passports on your person at all times, do not let them out of your sight! Unfortunately Don and I were robbed as we made a toilet stop on the journey. Stupidly we left USD450 in my handbag on the bus and someone stole it! Boo! Anyhoo, not letting the bastards get us down it was onwards and upwards to Siem Reap.

The 300km road from the border to Siem Reap is unsealed and hard work for the buses travelling on it daily. An Airline company has paid the government to leave the road unfixed so that more travellers would pay to arrive by air. This road was once a good solid road but was destroyed in parts by landmines during the conflicts here. We were undeterred by this and would much rather our money go to a small bus company than a big airline company any day! The journey took around six hours but it wasn’t too bad, it was comfy enough and the scenery kept us entertained for hours. Just beautiful! It is hard to describe the contrast between this country and it’s neighbour. The first thing I noticed when crossing the border was a group of kids playing in the muddy street. They were having the best of craic, as I looked up I noticed they were playing outside the centre for street kids. This is something we have not encountered so far on our travels, Thailand and Malaysia are so different in comparison. Cambodia is still recovering from the brutal civil war and is struggling to get back on it’s feet.

We were dropped off by the bus at the Hilton Angkor, Oooo Posh!!! It was actually really nice and really cheap, a lot less than we were paying for our scabby rooms in Bangkok and we had TV and HOT WATER!!! Luxury! I don’t think any of us had used a hot shower since we left Aus!! Our first day in Siem Reap was spent chilling out and watching TV in bed, something we all really needed. We did get out of our pits to go get some grub in the evening though. We found a little Khmer restaurant which only served soup, no one spoke English and we didn’t have a clue what we were doing. There was a gas ring in the centre of our table where a clay pot was rested, we were then handed plates of meat and veg and eggs. Basically it was a bit of a DIY dinner, once the pot began to boil we chucked in the ingredients, the locals all seemed to be looking and giggling as if we had done something stupid, quite possible I think, but we ate it and it was yum and oh so cheap.

We awoke the next morning at 4am ready to head off to the marvellous Temples Of Angkor to watch the sunrise on my 25th birthday. We reluctantly clambered into the Tuk tuk’s eagerly waiting for us downstairs and arrived at a very impressive temple just as it was getting light. It was beautiful and so worth getting up for. After a spot of breakfast, the usual rice for the boys and fruit salad for me, we visited Bayon, an amazing temple with a collection of 54 gothic towers decorated with 216 smiling, enormous faces. Every corner we turned there where more of these wonderful faces staring down at us. There were statues of Buddha dressed in golden silks with incense burning as an offering. We each light a stick and made a donation and went on our way to find another temple in the area. The next temple was huge and in the same area as Bayon, the City of Angkor Thom. Phimeanakas is the name of this massive structure. We had to scale the side of the building on a rickety set of wooden steps stretching towards the sky. Wilson had some trouble getting down as he has a fear of heights and few locals gathered at the bottom of the steps to giggle at his attempts to reach the bottom. But it was worth the climb for the photo opportunity at the top. We were constantly surrounded by children in the city of Ankgor Thom. They were selling bracelets and books and little keepsakes. Davey had mentioned taking some sweets along with us to the temples but we had forgotten and we all found it very difficult not giving these kids anything. There were so many of them and they were each asking for a dollar. Wilson and Ecto succumbed and bought a some rice paper embossed with Buddhist figures and painted in wonderful colours. Davey bought an over priced copy of a book but it was worth it, a good read and the money will be put to good use. There is a temple called Ta Prohm where Tomb Raider was filmed and it was on our list of must see’s. All of the walls of this temple were tumbling down. Trees were growing on top of these walls with the roots ripping through them and tearing them down. It was amazing standing next to these roots towering above us. There were long dirt pathways leading up to each ruin and on many of them there was wonderful music being played on traditional Cambodian instruments. The musicians were all victims of landmines, a sight all too common in this country. They were very talented and selling CD’s of their music, we made a donation and took a photograph of them. We also found two children drawing beautiful pictures in the dirt track, they were wonderful works of art and the kids were so cute, I wanted to bring them home but Don wouldn’t let me.

Originally we were going to walk between the temples but we had been offered the tuk tuk’s for USD10 each for the day, the temples are such a distance apart we would have been walking all day and would only have seen a couple of them. Our drivers were great and showed us the best places and took us on the best route. In this part of the world it quite the norm to see whole families crammed onto one scooter, it is the main type of transport. You see all manner of things being transported on scooters, pains of glass, double mattresses, massive sacks of rice. The funniest, however is what we saw at the temples… There was a guy riding his scooter with a huge dead pig strapped to the back. We all did a double take as it passed us by. This pig looked the same size as the scooter! So funny!

Well as it was my birthday, Don and I decided to treat ourselves to some posh grub. We referred to our travelling bible and found a nice wee place down by the riverside. The FCC Angkor, lovely grub and at USD22 for a steak it is a big difference to the $1.50 noodle soup we’ve become accustomed too. Don was so impressed with the steak he couldn’t help taking photo’s to show off to the boys. I had a wonderful chicken dish and we had 2 carafes of posh white wine. The venue was lovely and the service was perfect, by far the best meal we’ve had in a very very long time!!! After dinner we went on for cocktails in a nice wee café and then onto a bar and then onto another bar. Ooops, before we knew it the sun was coming up and we were still playing pool with a bunch of …yes you guessed it… Irish folk. The perfect birthday! Thanks honey!!! After a day of recovering we bought our tickets to Phnom Penh and headed off then following day.

View on Cambodia so far…Beautiful!

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Photos

Hello Cambodia
The border crossing between Thailand & Cambodia

Unsealed Roads
The start of the road to Siem Reap from the border. Mud and dirt lined most of the road

Angkor Wat at sunrise
The earliest we have got up in weeks. A beautiful sunrise over the most famour temple in the area

The Bayon
The temple described with all the faces. Some are visible behind us

Little boy drawing in the sand
We believe he drew it himself as we caught another kid nearby drawing another picture. Some sort of buddhist image we as far as we are aware

Giant Buddha
One of the many spectacular statues around the temples

Massive trees
Spot Chloe hiding in the background. These massive trees are tearing the walls apart all over the area

The Gang
All of the SE Asia crew posing

More rooting around
Big Ecto messing around

Landmine Victims
Playing traditioinal instruments to earn cash as they do not want to beg. All have lost limbs from unexploded landmines since times of war, which are still a threat today

Floating about
Just all of us having fun around the temples

Happy Birthday Chloe
Out for a fantastic meal after visiting the temples

mmmmmmmm.....expensive
Chloe looking well proud of the most expensive feed we have had since leaving Australia

Cocktail time
Onwards and upwards, Too much wine, too many cocktails and onto another few bars.

Comments

[Blue steal]

Hey dudes
Hello bhoys and girl, just having a nosey through your pics there, and wow i wish i was there with ye? don did you get ur shoesw back? wallet? or give the police man his hat back? oh and just so u kow im very jealous..... pics are brilliant