Blogs from Cambodia, Asia - page 845

Hello everyone, So we have not entered a blog for a while and we are currently sat at Changi airport (having just had swim in the rooftop pool) waiting to fly to Medan in Sumatra as we start the Orangutan volunteer programme tomorrow. So in a way part of our trip has come to an end and we start another adventure which is going to be hard work (and yes we are getting worried!) and we will not be able to contact the email or use the phone as far as we can tell. So we thought we would write quickly and say Hello. No pictures on this blog at the moment as we cannot download on these machines...but we will add planty when we finish the volunteer programme. So we moved from Siam Reap to ... read more

We were especially excited about our journey to Cambodia as we would be traveling with our good friends Megan and Tom and their friends from Montreal, Dora, Jeff and Dave. On the morning of December 29th we woke Megan and Tom bright and early to say hello. They had arrived in Bangkok from Canada late the previous night. We were traveling by bus to Siem Reap and they were flying so we would meet them that evening in Cambodia but we were too excited to wait. We shared the bus with several travelers who had escaped the devastation of the Tsunami; their stories and pictures were all too real. Otherwise, the bus ride through Thailand to the Cambodian border was uneventful. On the Cambodian side of the border we were met by dozens of young children ... read more

We arrived in Cambodia crossing through the Thai border. This bus journey was a long one from Chian Mai, via Bangkok. The journey from the border to the Cambodian town of Siam Reap was a real bone-shaker! We were told we would be a nice coach with Air-con when infact we were on a stinky little mini-bus crammed full of people and bags and there were pot-holes everywhere. Luckily the guest house (moon-rise) was somwhere nice to recover. The next day we had a much awaited lie-in and then headed off to see the temples of Angkor in the afternoon. We purchased a 3-day ticket which was well worth the $40 each as there is so much to explore. If you were really keen and wanted to see all the temples it would take a week ... read more

City of Temples Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat is unbelievable – words cannot describe the magnitude and beauty of the temples. We spent three days touring the temples, including our favourite, Bayon, an incredible Wat made of 116 massive faces. Here are a few pics. ... read more

Temples aside, Siem Reap is an interesting town, hitting a huge boom. There are some beautiful French buildings which still survive and a growing restaurant industry. However, there are two sides to the city which we felt a little difficult to deal with - the travel tour industry, those tours that just fly straight in, check into the Hilton and catch airconditioned buses to the temples, failing to line anyone's pockets except those of the five star operators and hotels, and the local people, who are still suffering from decades of tragedy and not benefiting from this boom, but arguably the ones who have the most right to make a dollar or two from their ancestor's temples. Wedding at Angkor Wat One of the craziest things about Angkor is the number of wedding parties that turn ... read more