The Temples of Angkor

Asia
August 4th 2009

Published: August 4th 2009

From Phnom Penh, we caught a bus up to Siem Reap to see the mighty temples of Angkor. We found ourselves a very nice hotel in Siem Reap with a swimming pool!

We decided to keep our friendly tuk tuk driver to take us round the temples, and arranged to meet him at 4:45 the next morning to try to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. We managed to get up in time, however the weather didn't come to the party and it was more a 'sky lightening' than an actual sunrise. It was still very amazing to see Angkor wat appear out of the dark, and some very enterprising stall holders kept us supplied with coffee and a seat. It was also a great time of day to look around Angkor Wat, without the hordes of Japanese tourists with Megaphones! The temple itself is as amazing in real life as you would expect, the detail in carvings in every inch of the temple is quite incredible, as is it's sheer size. It is amazing to think it was built so long ago, but I guess you can do anything if you have enough slaves. We took tonnes of photos,

Ta Phrom

but unfortunately our memory stick with the photos on is still in Cambodia with Kirsten (long story!) so we will have to upload these later.

We then went to Angkor Thom, including the Bayon temple with it's amazing face carvings, and what seemed like the entire population of Japan! We visited various other temples around there, then carried on to Ta Phrom where the skies opened up! As we were starting to fade from our early morning we decided to head back to Siem Reap and head back in the morning. It was Kirsten’s birthday so we had a few cocktails thanks especially to the 'happy hours' that last the entire day - aka 'happy days'!

The next day we were feeling a bit worse for wear so arranged a leisurely pick up of 11am. We headed back to Ta Phrom where the jungle is overtaking the temple, then out to the further away temples of Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre. These temples were quite different with very beautiful carvings, and had virtually no other people there which was lovely! We then headed back to Angkor Wat for the Sunset, but once again the weather disappointed us and

Ta Phrom

we had more of a darkening! We were one of the last people to leave Angkor Wat though so we managed to get some great photos with no one else in them!

We had a very leisurely final day in Cambodia, we said goodbye to Kate in the morning as she was heading back to New Zealand, then took part in a cooking course where we learnt how to make fresh spring rolls, the delicious Khmer and Amok curries, and some yummy sago desserts, which we'll definitely be practicing when we get home!

We booked our bus to the Thai border for the next morning, with a 7am pickup. We were eventually picked up about 7:30, then traveled about 1km before stopping at a 'mechanic' to fix some apparent problem with the bus - although we were never actually told anything, we just gathered this when they started pulling the bus apart. 2 hours later we finally got going, and eventually arrived in Bangkok at 7pm. We found ourselves a very dodgy looking room off Khao San Rd, then just had time to sample some of the local cuisine and do some shopping before heading to bed for