Siem Reap, Cambodia

October 1st - October 5th 2011

We left Vietnam by bus and crossed the border in to Cambodia. The journey was a long one and after leaving Ho Chi Minh at about 6 am we arrived in Siem Reap Cambodia late in the evening. The journey had also been delayed so the poor person picking us up had been waiting for about two hours for us, he was lovely about it and held a heart shaped sign with our names in and took us by tuk tuk to our guesthouse down the road. We headed out for dinner as we were starving and found the infamous 'Pub Street' full of tourists. We had dinner at a Mexican place which was delicious and made up for our long day with no stops for lunch or snacks.

Delicious vegetarian chimichanga at Viva Restaurant.

We spent our first day in Siem Reap relaxing after our tiring day travelling from Vietnam. We found a great market and I got two print dresses for $9 which i've lived in ever since. We spent the afternoon at the Angkor National Museum learning about Angkor Wat which we would be visiting tomorrow. The museum was well laid out and quite interesting but at $12 USD it was pretty expensive. We had dinner at a street stall to save money as after paying for the museum and my dresses I was a little over budget for the day.

We got up early the next day as we would be spending the day at Angkor Wat and the other complex of ruins and temples called Angkor Thom. We hired a tuk tuk and driver for the day to take us around to all the different sites as it's all very spread out. Of course being our luck it was raining again, it's always a beautiful sunny day when we aren't doing much and then rains when we are outside all day. The journey by tuk tuk to Angkor Wat was fun, we purchased our ticket at the entrance gate which was $20 USD. Approaching Angkor Wat was an impressive sight, even in the rain. There is a long path leading up to the famous building which even though was full of tourists taking photo's is still a breathtaking sight. We walked along the walkway admiring the views across the Angkor Wat sight and finally went inside. We explored the temple for a couple of hours, climbing big steps to get into high up rooms full of statues and carvings on the wall. One of the carvings stretched all along one wall and depicted a famous scene from Hindu mythology called 'The Churning Of The Sea Of Milk'. We had learned about the myths and stories from Hinduism and Buddhism in our visit to the Angkor Museum so to see the bass relief carving in person was fantastic.

Approach to Angkor Wat

We looked down all the corridors and in all the rooms and courtyards that we could find before finally finding our driver and moving on to Angkor Thom. We stopped at the South Gate and took photo's when a line of elephants walked by the tuk tuk. It was the first time on our trip to Asia that I had seen any outside of a zoo environment and it was great to watch them walk by.

Elephants walking by.

The next temple we went to was Bayon temple which was a lot smaller and far less crowded than Angkor Wat. It seemed to be more ruined as well and we spent our time walking through the very narrow corridors being careful not to slip on the wet and slippery stones. This temple had a lot of faces carved in to the stones that appeared to be staring down at us as we walked around the temple. We left Bayon temple and walked through a bit of soggy marshland to get to the next sight called Baphuon. We walked along the raised walkway which was surrounded by water and up to the temple. We weren't able to go inside this one so we admired it from ground level and walked on to the next sight.

Faces in the stone.

We walked through a wooded area to get to the next sight and came across a giant spider's web with a huge spider in it. Luckily it was quite far away up in the tree's but it still gave us a little fright as neither of us like spiders at all. We followed the signs down some steps and through a ruined doorway to Phimeanakas temple. It looked a lot like a Mayan temple and was surrounded by water on all sides. Again we weren't able to explore this one but Craig said that it was his favourite of the temples we had seen, maybe due to it's shape and similarity to the temples in South America.

We walked along the Terrace Of The Elephants which had a view of the ruins opposite and we then walked down and stopped at a stall for lunch. The food seemed a lot more expensive compared to what we had seen in town, when we mentioned this to the woman she lowered the price of each dish by $1 so we sat down. I wasn't very impressed with my fried rice dish and when opening the ketchup bottle to improve it manged to splatter it all over my favourite top! That'll teach me for covering all my food in ketchup! After lunch we looked at the ruins opposite the Elephant Terrace and then got the tuk tuk to the next temple.

Temples in Angkor Thom.

There were two temples opposite eachother next and the whole area was swarming with children trying to sell postcards and trinkets. They followed us all around the temples continuously asking for us to buy something. It made us feel sad as it's the first real instance of children being used in the tourist industry that we have seen. We refused to buy anything as buying something from a child will only keep them on the streets longer. One couple next to us at a restuarant in Cambodia were approached by a little girl selling roses, they were obviously on holiday and hadn't come across this before so promptly bought a rose and gushed about how cute she was. The next second another girl came up with flowers and wouldn't leave them alone as she had seen them buy something before. The man then used a harsh tone telling her no and to go away. This sort of thing makes me really angry, buying things from them when it's a novelty and then getting angry at them when they don't leave you alone. They are only children at the end of the day who have been told to do it by their parents as it's more successful than them begging or selling themsleves.

The temples were in a fair bit of a ruined state and didn't take long to look at. One gentleman was selling rubbings of carvings from temples. We were really impressed with the pictures so Craig decided to buy one which depicts Angkor Wat in bright red. It's a striking image and is also quite big so will cost a fortune to frame when we get home! He did however manage to haggle it down from $20 to $10 so it was a bargain too.

Ta Keo was the next temple and one that you could climb the original stone steps to the top. My fear of heights prevented me from going to the top as there were no handrails and with my terrible balance I would definately slip and fall to the bottom. Craig loved the adventure of it and ran to the top and took photo's of the view to show me later. The final temple that we visited was Ta Prohm which we walked through a wood to get to. It was quite expansive with lots more nooks and crannies to discover. They were working on renovating parts of it so there were bits that were sealed off but still lots to see all the same. The very last temple that you can normally see was off limits to us today so we took the tuk tuk back home, stopping at the roadside after seeing some wild monkeys sat grooming eachother.

(Rather chubby) monkey on the roadside.

The day at the temples was an unforgettable one. It was the wish to see these that we decided to include Cambodia on our travels in the first place and it was definitely worth it.The next day was an uneventful one as we had such a great day at the temples the day before. We walked around Siem Reap and had another look around the markets as well as the overflowing river as many parts of Cambodia and Asia in general have been badly affected by flooding in the past weeks.