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Published: January 11th 2010
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We decided to get the 1pm afternoon train to the Cambodian boarder as we didn't fancy getting up at 4am to catch the 5.55am after some farewell drinks with Ben, Miguel and Dino the night before. The journey from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet took 6.5 hours in the cheap (90p) but uncomfortable 3rd class seats. We got a tuk tuk to take us from the train station to the boarder and was annoyed when he took us to the fake visa office (a shed with plastic patio furniture!) instead. The man there was quite annoyed I thought his ''Cambodian visa application centre'' was a scam. Despite this place being full of travellers all busy filling in forms and handing over cash we decided to walk to the boarder, sailed through Thai Immigration and found the real Cambodian Visa office. We were annoyed further when the Cambodian Immigration Officer was overcharging for visas, it should have been $20 but he was charging everyone there $25 because it was late or something like that. We gave in and payed $22 each to speed up the process, less than 2 quid extra but we were cross we'd be had. After getting our visas stamped we
were in Cambodia (Poipet to be precise) and along with our new friends Vincent and Lauren from Holland/Finland, we got a taxi to Siem Reap for $10 each. The taxi journey took just over 2 hours and at one point our driver tried to transfer us into tuk-tuks because ''he didn't know Siam Reap very well''......nice try sunshine, we had a map and navigated him to our choice of guesthouse without getting scammed for a second time. After our exhausting journey, we grabbed some street food and called it a night in the lovely guesthouse we'd found.
First day in Siem Reap, we had a well deserved lie in and then went to exlore the little touristy town. We walked along the plesant riverside path and found a colourful Buddhist temple called Wat Preath Prom Rath. We walked through the Royal Gardens (home to tall trees and huge sleeping bats!), admired the incredibly posh hotels and browsed some souvenier shops. The currency here is Cambodian Riels but everyone uses US dollars, which is easy for us but weird! The town was nice but dusty and like all the other tourist towns we've been to, the building of new shops
and hotels was going on like mad. The Old Market area was full of trendy bars, restaurants, beauty palours, night markets and street food stalls. We sampled Cambodia's national dish - amok curry and rice, which was amazing and took advantage of all night Happy Hour! While this place is lovely, there is a dark side. There were lots of tiny children begging and sorting through rubbish and loads of dirty old Americans ‘buying’ pretty Cambodian girls. No different to any other city in Asia though we suppose!
The reason Siem Reap has done so well is because of the nearby temples at the Angkor Archaeological Park. The most famous being Angkor Wat, as its the biggest religious building in the world and part of the antient Khymer Empire but also because this area was raided by Angelina in the film Tomb Raider! We hired a tuk-tuk and driver called Jame for 2 days for $40. I thought at first this was too expensive but we really got our moneys worth, both Jame and us were on our knees by the end of day 2!!
On the first day we started out at a reasonable 9am, bought our
3 Day Park Passes ($40 each!) from the ticket office and got stuck in. We visited
Banteay Srei ('Citadel of the Women', a small pretty pink sandstone Hindu temple surrounded by water, which had been renovated so the carvings were amazing),
Preah Khan ('Sacred Sword' a huge temple and city of corridors with well preserved carvings),
Neak Poam (an island temple),
Ta Som (a small Buddhist temple with a few smiling faces, taken over in part by a fig tree),
East Mebon (a huge 3 tier temple with 3 prasat towers and elephant sculptures) and
Pre Rup (an even bigger temple the with 5 tiers, 8+ prasat towers and great views). Turely amazing temples and ruins, a great day but it wasn't without mishap. The chain on the tuk-tuk motor bike broke so we had to get a mechanic out. The hawkers were out in force at each temple, constantly asking if we wanted a cold drink / pineapple / guidebook / postcard / necklace for $1.....................NO THANKS!
We got up at 4.30am the second day to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Sadly for us, the morning sky was thick with cloud so we didn't get the spectacular
colourful sunrise we wanted. Undetered, we had a quick rice breakfast at a tuk-tuk driver cafe and went on to visit
Angkor Thom's South Gate (top of the gate decorated with giant faces and causeway lined with 54 god and 54 demon statues),
Bayon Temple (one of our favourites, a huge temple mass of stairs, corridors and 54 towers decorated with 216 huge faces),
Baphuon Temple (huge pyramid temple being renovated by the French),
Phimeanakas Temple (3 tier pyramid),
Terraces of the Elephants and Terraces of the Leper King (really long walls decorated with wonderful 2D and 3D elephant and warrior carvings),
Ta Keo (massive temple with very steep steps to the top),
Banteay Kdei (a vast Buddhist monastry that we enjoyed exloring the many corridors and courtyards) and
Ta Prohm (our favourite and popular with everyone else, the temple made famous by Tomb Raider. The crumbling lichen-covered temple is being strangled by tree roots and looks like a lost world or something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Loads of dark tombs and corridors to explore, we loved it. It was SO busy with Japanese tour groups though and it took ages to get a perfect picture. Worth it
though!). We had been invited to lunch with Jame's family but we decided to pass because we were all so hot, sweaty, dirty and tired. Bless him, what a nice guy. He told us he used to work as a labourer all day and a hotel security guard all night, while learning English, to save up to buy a tuk-tuk to earn some better money for his family (wife and 2 little girls).....life is tough here.
For our third day of temple exploring we hired bikes from the hotel and rode to
Phnom Bakheng (crumbling hill temple with great views over jungle, Tonle Sap lake and Angkor Wat) and
Angkor Wat, the biggest and most famous temple here. It is huge and very impressive because of its massive moat, symetry and famous conical shaped towers. The bas relief carvings around the walls of the first level were beautiful and the place was covered with aspara carvings (lady nymphs!). Tourists are no longer allowed up to the highest third level and the iconic towers although we did see people who had sneaked up there! It was amazing, amazing amazing! There were loads of newly married couples having their wedding photos
taken here, what a wonderful place to get married! We bought lunch from a basket lady (boiled corn and sticky rice/soy bean/coconut mixture in a bamboo tube) and stayed for sunset, where we were treated to a lovely pink sky. We spent our last days in Siem Reap lazing around, enjoying beauty treatments, eating great food (including crocodile and snake at a BBQ restaurant and brunch in a butterfly garden), watching bootleg Twilight DVDs and enjoying the 30p beers. We spent one evening with a crazy couple from Holland / Poland and the bloke decided to jump in a fish foot massage aquarium much to the shock of the owners and fish, and amusement of everyone on Pub Street. Dutch people are bonkers!
After spending too much time and money in Siem Reap, we booked our bus tickets to the capital city Phnom Penh......
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Brad Cheatham
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WOW!
Great blog guys! Totally amazing towers, I love all the cool faces! Dee is rockin' those brown baggy capri's... glad to see all the new people you are meeting! No Lara Croft pose from Holly though?? What's up with that... :) Glad you guys are continuing to have a great time! Happy New Year to you both, can't wait to see all your adventures this year!!! Safe travels and much love... -Bx