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Published: March 9th 2012
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We arrived in a very hot and dusty Siem Riep after a 6hr bus journey, in which again, we had locals crammed up the middle of the aisle on a piece of wood, sat right next to Darren! It really is beginning to annoy us now, but Darren managed to keep his cool as we’ve not many trips left now. We arrived at the bus station, waiting for our tuk tuk driver to pick us up from the guesthouse, to no avail. We ended up paying for one to get to our guesthouse - Happy Guesthouse, and the owner was so apologetic, explaining that the tuk tuk driver was at the other bus terminal waiting, doh! We checked in, and went to explore the city.
Siem Reap is a really lovely place, it has a great atmosphere and a very arty feel to it, there are craft shops, art galleries and little wine bars everywhere. The river which runs through the centre bears an uncanny resemblance to Carcassonne in France where we go a lot, so it was nice to be somewhere which felt familiar. Its also illegal to rent motorbikes out here to tourists so although there’s
still the locals on the mopeds, the roads are really quiet and people cycle everywhere, which gives it a much more chilled out vibe.
We ate at the Red Piano in the evening and had a browse through the Night Market. Then went exploring the place for a big TV screen for Darren to watch his beloved Liverpool in the Carling Cup final against Cardiff. We found out that no bar was showing the game as it was on ITV 1, so we ended up in X Bar, whilst Darren had to check the progress on a laptop they had. We ended up meeting a guy called Rob and his mrs Ellie from Barrow in Cumbria, and a Liverpool fan called John from Macclesfield, who had lived in Siem Riep for 4 years teaching swimming to the locals. John has a son which he had with a Cambodian woman 18 months ago, and the mother abandoned them one day and has never been back! Fortunately a nice fella who owns a pool bar called Aqua bar, looks after the baby in the day, whilst John goes to work!
The next day, we were a
little ropey after the Liverpool celebrations, so we went to Aqua pool bar, to chill out, and met the owner John, who looked after scouse Johns little boy, Ronnie. We chilled around the pool all day, then went out at night to the famous ‘Angkor Wat’ and ‘Temple Bar’ for a few drinks at night, before retiring at around 2ish.
We shopped some more the following day and just relaxed around the guesthouse before taking a tuk tuk over to Phnom Bakheng within the World Heritage Angkor site to watch the sunset. If you purchase the one day Angkor pass after 4.45pm they are valid for the following day, so we took full advantage and were making our way up the hill to the ruins by 5pm to settle in for the sunset views over the area. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best and we’ve definitely seen better sunsets, but it was still pleasant and the ruins at the top were pretty impressive. We took it easy that night as we had our tuk tuk driver coming to collect us at 4.30am the following day!
After a shocking nights sleep (its so so hot
here, hottest place we’ve been, and we only had a fan room) we got up at 4.15am and tried to be enthusiastic about the sunrise visit. We were both super moody and couldn’t be arsed at all, but we stuck to the plan and were at the entrance to Angkor Wat just before 5am in the pitch black - with no torch! Schoolboy error, but we just didn’t think! We bought a massively overpriced flashlight and headed over the bridge with what seemed like thousands of other people, and entered the grounds. We took a seat just in front of the water and sat bored for about half an hour.. Then all of a sudden, the outline of the temple started to become visible and we watched in awe as it appeared out of the darkness, it was absolutely breathtaking and something we will never forget, totally worth getting up for! We headed off for a walk around Angkok Wat just as the sun came up and managed to beat the crowds and were pretty much the first in there, we had the place to ourselves!
The actual area of the UNESCO site is 400 square miles,
yep seriously big! Angkor Wat took 35 years to construct in the 12th century and was built as a spiritual home for the Hindu god Vishnu. It was vast and we spent a good couple of hours there taking it all in. The grounds of Angkor city at the time housed 1 million people and at the same time in London there were around 30,000 people!
Next stop was Ta Prohm, aka the Tomb Raider temple. I haven’t actually seen the film but every 5 seconds Darren was like ‘aw I recognise this bit’ etc. it was completely different to Angkor Wat and is relatively untouched (although they were rebuilding sections while we were there). All the trees have been kept and actually growing around the temple, its amazing!
We then headed over to Angkor Thom (what the locals call Big Angkor) which is huge in comparison to Angkor Wat but not as advanced in being restored so much of the area is just ruins. We visited Bayon temple where there are literally hundreds of smiling Buddha faces which top 37 towers around the temple, again really amazing and completely different in design that
the other two temples. We explored Baphuon temple, Phimeanakas temple and Elephant Terrace which were all within Angkor Thom, then headed back to meet our tuk tuk driver, Nim at around lunchtime, who took us back to the guesthouse for a well earned rest and some lunch.
We decided not to go back in the afternoon as we were so tired and I was full of a cold so we just took it easy and caught up on some sleep, it really takes it out of you walking for 7 hours in 30 degree heat! In the evening we walked into town and went for well earned foot and leg massages which cost $1 for 15 minutes, bargain! Darren had a foot scrub as he was desperate for one, but with his hatred of feet, he really struggled and was flinching the whole way through and had to tell the guy doing it to keep stopping, it was so funny, he hated every second of it (but had super smooth feet afterwards!). We then headed for an Indian in the hope that it’d shift my man-flu, and had an early night.
I was even
worse the next day and could hardly surface out of bed, so we chilled around the guesthouse and had a productive day of Darren applying for jobs, booking buses, accommodation etc. We also popped out to buy a suitcase to replace my backpack, which was falling to bits, so I am no longer a backpacker, I am now a holiday maker! Our final day in Siem Reap was spent back at Aqua Pool Bar soaking up some sun and making the most of the hot weather (we are trying to not think about how rubbish the weather is going to be when we get home!)
Next stop - final stop, Thailand again!
TTFN Folks xxxxx
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pauline bass
non-member comment
Soooo fabulous!
Your last blog was amazing, the place is so hot but stressful for you, I get it but, the UK is so cool and extremely stressfull!!! ha ha. Darrens foot massage must have been funny to watch Gorgeous pictures and amazing tale. Cannot wait now!. love ya mum xx