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Published: June 24th 2009
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Hello everyone,
this is our last blog in Cambodia as we're flying to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning. Thought i'd get you upto speed on our last week in this beautiful country.....
We stayed in Sihanoukville for 4 nights in total - it was good to have a relax after the intensity of the previous week and the place had a chilled out in the day time but party at night thing going on which was just what we were looking for! Learning our lesson from the first day we decided to avoid the beach as its not very relaxing being asked every 5 minutes if you want a bracelet/manicure/pedicure/t-shirt etc....I know its how they earn a living but i think by now we've had so much of it and have bought as many t-shirts and bracelets as the budget will allow.....although this is a concept not understood here - they think all westerners are loaded so when we said we had no money on us the answer from the kids was 'go to the atm silly!' Also, its mainly children selling on the beach and they're harder to resist but there are signs up to say dont buy from
North bridge
Lots of temples had archways like this at the entrance them as it encourages them to miss school so we figured we were doing everyone a favour by staying away! Instead we read at the hostel, watched a bit of tv and played a lot of pool. Neil and Stuart, a couple of guys we'd met back in Hanoi turned up on our last night and had come with a group of irish lads and a couple of english girls so we all headed to the beach for a bit of a dance etc....until 12.30 when the music was turned off due to the prime ministers' wife staying down the road - probably for the best in my case! Sihanoukville definately exceeded expectations as its meant to be the costa del cambodia but maybe we were in the wrong area for that....Monkey Republic was the name of the backpacker place we stayed in - it's run by 4 guys from Cambridge and we stayed in a little hut with our own bathroom for $6 a night. Heinz baked beans were on the menu so Tom got his proper fry up and we even had chips and gravy one day!! This totally satisfied any cravings for home we previously had and
put us back on the road for hitting Siem Reap with renewed vigour...
A very uncomfortable overnight bus journey on a seated bus later, we arrived in Siem Reap at 5.30am about 5km out of town...standard. So we paid $1 each to get to town with Chai, a tuk tuk driver who then became our tuk tuk driver for our stay here...having learnt from Liam and Michelle's honest mistake that you must never cheat on your tuk tuk driver, otherwise they may hunt you down and assault you in public. A short nap until 12 gave us enough energy and enthusiasm to explore the town which we immediately took to and much preferred to Phnom Penh. We had a little wander round the market and bought a krama each - the traditional Cambodian scarf used to protect you from the sun, dust etc. Nothing too strenuous as we had to save our energy for the next three days when we visited the Temples of Angkor....
8.30am we were on the road in the back of Chai's tuk tuk munching our laughing cow baguettes (a staple food)for breakfast. On our first day we did the 'grand circuit' or the
big circuit which consisted of 7 temples (I wont talk about all of them)...first up was Preah Khan (which means sacred sword) amazingly still very much in tact and we were astounded at the intricacy of the carvings on the pillars, on the walls, outside...everywhere! We walked through the series of corridors with very small doorways (see picture of me!) round the side and at every turn was a delicately carved scene or pattern. Very impressed we hopped back in the tuk tuk and headed to Preah Neak Poan which was totally different. Much much smaller in grounds and actual temple size we were able to take in the whole area. There used to be a large pool in the middle, surrounded by four smaller pools although today they are dry. It was really beautiful and very tranquil so we had a moment to take it all in as its probably really easy to rush round and then forget what everything looked like! Another favourite was East Mabon...totally different again this was huge in height and had elephants round the outside. Standing at the foot of the giant sized steps, the scale of the building was incredible and we tried
to imagine how on earth they were built over 1000 years ago. Throughout the day we saw the same couple - obviously doing a similar route to us - who were hilarious as they pulled really serious 'sexy' poses in front of the temples...in contrast to me pretending to be a lion at the top of the stairs and Tom pretending to moon (he only revealed about an inch of flesh and was bitten - served him right!!) At 2pm we were heading back to town having had a brilliant day and very glad we'd hired a tuk tuk for the day as we had contemplated cycling but with roughly 2km between temples and all the giant stairs i dont think we'd have made it back to town!!
Day 2 we set off at around 8.30 and drove 16km further than where the central temples are located to Banteay Srei. This was the temple I was most looking forward to as it is made out of pink stone and its name means 'Citadel of the women' as it is said that it must have been carved by women as the carvings are too fine to have been done by
a man. It definitely didn't disappoint and was well worth the extra drive out there. Incredibly intricately carved we were happy wandering around for a while admiring all the different scenes etc. On the way back to the main area we stopped to find out how palm sugar is made...Chai explained how they use all parts of a palm tree - the roots for medicine, the bark and leaves for building and the flowers (from the male tree) for palm sugar or palm wine and the fruit (from the female tree) for cakes. It was really sweet - a bit like fudge - and Tom loved it so bought a few packs to keep his sweet tooth happy. In the afternoon we visited Ta Prohm which is where Tomb Raider and I think Raiders of the Lost Ark (Indiana Jones) were filmed. It was crazy - trees seemed to be growing out of everywhere and taking over the temple...it looked like it was from another world. We did our best action hero poses and left just in time as it started to absolutely hammer down.
On our third and final day we had saved the big hitters for last....Angkor
Wat and the temples of Angkor Thom. A quick detour to the Roluos group of temples (the earliest and therefore most fallen down, not much to report) before back to visit Angkor Wat itself. It was massive. Very massive. Although, to begin with we weren't too impressed - i know it sounds silly, but it just didnt strike us as prettier or much different to several others - the only difference was the scale of it. We'd definitely seen more ornate carvings (Banteay Srei) and more unusual temples (Ta Prohm) but in the end we were won over by its sheer size....i took a picture of Tom standing in the middle of the complex and he looks absolutely tiny - see if you can spot him! We also took photos of our heads on some headless statues as I was feeling sorry for all the headless creatures all the way round!! After an hour of taking it all in we had lunch and then went to the Angkor Thom complex to see Bayon which is a collection of 54 towers decorated with 216 faces...impressive. After this we felt like we'd seen enough and we were 'templed out'....they were like nothing
we have ever seen before and will never see again so we were glad to have taken our time to see as much as we could handle!
Right, off to pack now before dinner and early bed as we fly at 8.30am....
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Rob Burke
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Another fascinating country!!
Thanks for another interesting blog-looks tremendous! We're off to Lisbon on Friday morning back on the Wednesday 12 days later. Tom -we've arranged to go to Sam's place in Norfolk on Saturday August 1st and will pick you up and bring you back to Melling from Joey's if that's ok with her mum and dad Love Dad