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Long time, No hear from!!
Hello to all and apologies for our lack of contact but as we're sure most of you will know by now, we had a family emergency back in England that required us to make a sudden and unplanned return home.
Unfortunately May's Nan had a stroke and has sadly passed away. Although this is very sad and May is obviously very upset, a little time has passed and she now feels the time is right to get back out on the road and complete the trip that you have all been kind enough to join us on via your internet connection.
I'm affraid you will have to live without reading about Southern Thailand and Malyasia as we have had to cut these two areas out while we delt with things in the UK, but we've told you plenty about Thailand already and Malyasia is only next door so how different can it be??
So lets get you all filled in eh?:
Siem Reap.
As you may recall from our last post, we were enjoying 30 odd degree heat on the beach in Cambodia while those of you in the UK were shovelling snow so you could get to work in the mornings. "Ha!"
From Sihanoukville we take a ten hour bus journey to the northern city of Siem Reap on the tip off the Tonal sap lake. Anyone who has been to Cambodia or even knows a small amount about it, knows exactly why we are here. The world famous temples of Angkor.
To be completely honest the temples are the reason everyone is here and from the moment you step off the bus you can't move for Tuk-Tuk drivers wanting to take you to see all there is to behold at Angkor. However, having now been in S.E. Asia for 3 months we are no longer easy pray for these Tuk-Tuk drivers and instead of being the "Scamed" we become the "Scamers".
To cut a long story short, we end up in the area of town where WE want to stay and have not been conned into booking our driver for a sky high fee so he can take us on his Angkor tour, and we manage to do all this while only spending $2. You'll have to trust us when we tell you that this is some accomplishment!
We found ourselves an amazing little family run guesthouse in a quiet area of town after the mother practically chased us down the street to show us her rooms. It turned out the oldest daughter spoke great English and was the go to girl for local advice and to book any trips that you may want to go on.
After a ten hour trip on a bus we decide that we are in no hurry to see the temples and opt instead to spend the following day just exploring the town.
Siem Reap itself is nothing to write home about, it's pleasant enough, with the usual bars and resturants and due to the level of tourists that pass through, it's fair to say it's probably one of the most modern towns in Cambodia. It does however have one stand-out feature thats not (as far as we know!) mentioned in the guide books.
If you happen to venture into the park at around 6:00pm and look up towards the trees, you will see what at first glance appear to be large fruits hanging down. If however you continue to watch you will in
fact discover they are VERY large, wild fruit
bats!
Shortly after 6:00 as the sun starts to go down these huge animals take to the sky in one big troop. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of them.
The Temples of Angkor
I don't think that we can explain the temples and do them any justice. We spent three days exploring the ruins and everyday was an adventure. Our minds struggled to grasp the age of the structures while our eye's feasted on the sights. Some were tiny fountains while others were vast cities. Some are barren almost Egyptian like buildings reaching up into the open blue sky whilst others are hidden in the jungle, slowly letting nature reclaim them. Of all the temples Preah Khan was definately our favourite and the most fun. An enourmous collapsing temple full of maze like corridors. There was hardly anyone there and we found ourselves scaling the walls and tumbling through the jungle of the more delapitated areas. We explored like kids in a candy store until we were exhausted. The last temple we visited was the Bayon, an incredibly serene temple. Huge carved faces smile out at you from every angle all the way to the top. Our last
image of Angkor was of the Bayon swathed in the pink light of dusk.
Siam Reap (Cambodia) - Bangkok (Thailand)
From Siam Reap we booked ourselves on a boat to Battambang. The open sides and slow pace of the boat let us into the heart of a Cambodian lifestyle, the floating Villages. After leaving the Tonle Sap lake (which is so large it may as well have been a sea!) we found ourselves amoungst houses that literally float in communities. There are houses, shops, churches and even floating pig pens. Further up, the river narrows and we see tiny house boats pushed up into bushes on the riverbank. All around us tiny almost wild looking children run over the mudbanks and wave at us while their parents go about their daily lives on the river. We spend one night in Battambang a few hours from the Thai border and the next morning sees us on a bus bound for bangkok.
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