I'm slacking with my blogs! I've been so tired though! Our day at the temples was a very long day. We were up at 4.15am to be on our way at 5am with our tuk tuk driver for the day, Lee.
Our first stop was the famous Angkor Wat for sunrise. It was quite exciting arriving in the dark (with plenty of other people) and seeing the dark towers looming but the sunrise was pretty rubbish. Angkor Wat itself wasn't as big as I expected either, plus some huge green scaffolding right at the front didn't exactly help to make it spectacular. Billed as the most impressive of the temples in the Angkor area, I did wonder how much I'd enjoy the rest of the day.
Our second stop was about 30km north of Angkor Wat; Banteay Srei. We travelled through some nice little villages and people working hard in the rice fields. This temple was billed in our guidebook as a small but stunning pink 'fairytale' temple, I was looking forward to visiting something so unique. Well, it wasn't pink. It wasn't even red. I was confused! It was quite nice though. Very small so I was glad that we missed the large number of tour coaches that arrived once we were leaving.
Our next stop was Ta Phrom. A jungle ravaged temple left to it's own devises. After being disappointed by the first two temples which I'd looked forward to seeing, this temple was a welcome stop. Trees grew on top of the roofs, through the walls and roots weaved in and out of piles of rubble. It was mind blowing at times! We really enjoyed it.
En route we stopped at a smallish temple called Chau Say Tevoda with Thommanom opposite it and then a very high temple called Ta Keo which we climbed all the way up-make that crawled! It really was that steep and the 'steps' were made for small children's feet. Coming down was pretty scary!
Our last planned stop was the Angkor Thom ruins. A series of temples spread out over quite some distance. Banyon temple was the most impressive of the day, it was incredible. The quirky carved faces all over the temple tower tops were brilliant. It had 4 entrances and every one seemed to give an even better view. That was my highlight of the day.
On our way back Lee offered to stop at Angkor Wat again as the sun is at a more flattering angle during the afternoon. I still wasn't blown away but was glad that we stopped.
We got home 11 hours after we had left. 11 hours!!!! I would never have guessed I could spend that long looking at temples-we have seen a lot already in the last 4 months!
Overall we had a very memorable day. Any disappointments were certainly made up for.
The next day we had a nice lie in and relaxed treating ourselves to fish feet! It was amazing. There was a tank of small fish that were very ticklish and a tank of big fish that were a bit scratchy! It was lots of fun though!
Yesterday we made a long 6 hour bus journey on a terrible road to the capital, Phnom Penh. We were staying in the 'backpacker' area by the lake, a bit out of town. The lake has now dried up to more of a pond though and lots of guest houses and restaurants have closed down, making it not very cheap. We did however have a set menu of 3 curries each, rice, garlic naan, fruit and a beer for £1.88. Bargain! We really enjoyed the Charity Shield too, what a belter of a game! I can't wait for the season to start now!
Today we moved guesthouses to the centre. We were too far out of town and weren't getting any cheap food or room options, plus being offered heroin told us maybe we were in the wrong place! We are staying in a horrible guest house for £3 for both of us. It'll do for now! We were out and about today but I'll blog tomorrow, that's enough for now!