6/11/9 Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

We woke up and met Diamond to get transferred to the bus station to get the bus to Siem Reap. The journey to Siem Reap took six hours and went through some lovely countryside and rural areas. It wasn't the fantastic new road we were promised and we were bounced around a lot plus we were again subjected to the fantastic Khmer karaoke DVD all the buses have a copy of !! Once at Siem Reap we were met by a tuk tuk driver holding up a card with Mr Smith and Ms Llewellyn on it, much to Lizzies amusement. He drove us along the river to the Riverside hotel, allegedly run by Mr Diamond's uncle ? We checked in and one of the men working there asked us what time we wanted to be picked up the next day for a temple tour with the tuk tuk driver. We wanted to arrange something ourselves but it seemed like a reasonable deal so we agreed to meet him the next morning and hoped we weren't paying too much. We had a very nice room with air con and en suite and cool decor. Liz took a peep out of the window and looked at the view which was of the next door houses and back yards which in one case was a pig sty (literally full of pigs) . Fortunately we had nice curtains blocking the view !!! We changed and walked along the river into town.On the opposite banks there were some pretty basic wooden houses and several people along the river getting water and fishing. We needed to find a bank and a phone to call Phils friend Soupy who was getting married the next day. On the way to the ATM we found a barbers and Phil had decided he wanted all his head shaved bald to see what it looked like. He would have time to grow it back before he got home if it looked bad. The guy in the barbers shaved him to a number one and then Phil said "no no all off" so he was tipped back in the chair and his head covered in shaving foam. He had a cut throat razor shave and looked so different when it was finished as he'd had quite long hair and long whiskers before we went in. He looked just like Ghandi when he was done as he was wearing his glasses. Later we realised he looked just like the happy Buddha too with his round belly and bald head. We found a cash point then went off for a wander round and ate in Funky Munkys bar near Pub Street the main tourist area. After eating we walked to the night market area where there are many markets open from 4 till midnight selling all sorts of souvenirs and crafts. Outside one was a landmine victims band playing traditional music on Cambodian instruments. We donated some money to them and then went to look round the stalls. There were lots of lovely things to buy. but we resisted, then saw the Dr Fish stand which was a pool full of little fish which would eat the dead skin from peoples feet !!! Apparently its a great massage so we thought we would try that another day after touring the temples. Phil had a pretty heavy cold and relt rough so after looking in just a couple more shops and giving Soupy a call we headed back to the hotel for some sleep. Before bed we called the India travel company we had booked a tour with to see if we could alter the start date to give us more time in SE Asia. It was possible but we had a few other options to think about before changing anything.

7/11/9 Angkor Wat area tour day 1

We met up with our tuk tuk driver and had a quick chat about what we wanted to see. it was 8am and we set off to see the Angkor Archeological park which is spread over a huge area, 35km square. We stopped to buy passes which had digital photos of us on them (very advanced) went through th checkpoint and into the park. We drove along the huge Angkor Wat surrounding moat and had our first glimpse of the imposing temple with its famous towers. Angkor means capital city in Khmer and the Khmer empire ruled Cambodia from 9th to the 12th centuries. The term Angkor is used to describe the empire now. The temple ruins surrounding Siem Reap are the remains of the Angkor capitals and are ancient remnants of art, civilisation and architecture. The capital once had a population of a million people when London had a mere fifty thousand !! Our first day would be to drive around the small circuit route starting with the Angkor Thom (capital city) area. Our first stop was at the South gate to the area and our driver dropped us off so we could walk though it and meet him on the other side. We were bombarded with sales people selling all sorts of stuff. We wanted to get a guide book as we had no official guide for the day and had a ten minute bargaining session between two stalls to reach a good price. The gate itself was a huge impressive archway with four carved heads on it and a long causeway to it lined with Buddhas. The gateway was really busy with tourists so we struggled to get any people free pictures then walked through to meet our driver . We drove along to see the Bayon and its surrounding temples. At the Bayon we had a quick breakfast of fruit and meusli (healthy eh?) and then went to see the temple irself. The Bayon temple is covered in giant carved faces on 37 towers and is really incredible. The faces featured are unknwn but are thought to be a combination of Buddha and King Javavaraman VII . It was a great temple to look round on many levels and with the faces looking at tyou from all directions. The weather was quite overcast and the light bad so out pictures did it no justice at all. The Bayon is one of the most popular temples and the image of the towers with carved faces is in all the tourist shops on T-shirts and carvings and pictures so its pretty iconic to see. We walked to the next temple called Baphuon, but it was under reconstruction so you couldn't walk on it but we went around the back and saw a huge reclining Buddha carved along the entire length of the building. It was like looking for the man in the moon and it took Liz ages to see it. We were looking round and a chap was showing Liz where to take a good photo and he starting explaining a few things on the way to the royal palace area then asked for money for his tour !! Duped again!! Next we walked through to Phimeanakas, a mountain tample with a nice view from the top after a steep climb up. We walked out of the royal palace area and looked for the elephant terrace which was supposed to run along the length of the area but we only spotted a few elephant carvings along a huge terrace so we thought we must be in the wrong place. After that we arrived at the Terrace of the Leper King which is a double walled terrace lined on both sides with carvings of hundreds of demons, mythological creatures and concubines. The inner wall was only discovered in the 1990s. A statue found on the top of an unknown person may have been the mythological Leper king after which the terrace has been named. Opposite the terrace area there were many towers called Prasats Suor Prat which we looked at. The use of them is unknown but they may have been used as prisons at one time. We also walked around South Keong a pretty featureless building which was possible a storage area. We met our driver again after we had explored this huge area for about three hoursand then drove on to the victory gate. It was much queiter then the other one so we had good people free photos there. It had the same four heads carved onto a huge archway with a causeway to it. Our next stop was at Thommanam temple which was a small but nice temple where we ended up sheltering in for about fifteen minutes as there was a huge downpour. We crossed over the road to see another small temple called Chau Say Tevoda which was less impressive. Next we drove onto the Ta Kao temple which had some really steep steps up to the top which we climbed. It was a plaily carved temple monutain built steeply. It was the state temple of Jayavarman V. finally the sun came out after a very overcast morning and we had some good views across the jungle in which the Angkor temples were found. Our next stop was at the popular temple called Ta Prohm. It is popular because it has ben left largely as it was discovered and the jungle surrounding it is growing through the brickwork making it a fascinating place to see. It is as iff it has been made like a film set and has been used to film Tomb Raider and Two Brothers. It is like being in a set from Indiana Jones films and we really enjoyed looking around. Unfortunately it is quite dark there due to the tree cover so ite impossible to truly caprture it in photos. There are many huge fig and silk cotton trees growing through the brickwork which look now like they are part of the orioginal design. We have never seen anything like it. It was getting late so we drove back to Angkor Wat to catch the sunset. When we arrived there the sun had dropped below the trees and wasn't on the temple particularly so we decided to just cross the first causeway for a look. We didn't want to spoil our first look at the temple ,which we would be seeing for sunrise the next day, so we went back to the tuk tuk. We got dropped off in town and went to the World Bar for a really nice meal and an Angkor beer . We chatted to a Canadian couple for a while then headed back to the hotel as we were quite sticky after a long day exploring the temples. After a shower we arranged a flight from Phuket to Singapore to give us a bit more time in Thailand, then went off to bed as we had to be up early for sunrise the next day.

8/11/9 Angkor temple tour day 2

We woke up at 4.30 am to meet our driver to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. It was drizzling with rain unfortunately but we drove through town to the checkpoint where there were masses of eearly risers going to see the sunrise views too. Wehn we arrived at Angkor Wat we walked over the causeway and into the temple area and you could just see the iconic towers in the early morning light. They were in silhouette against the sun rising behind and it made an amazing view. Ther ewere hundreds of people there all jostling for the best photo position so we moved off to a quieter area off to one side where there were only a few tourists. A man saw where Phil was stood with a great clear view to the temple and deliberately plonked himself right in front to get the shot for himself. You can imaginds how impressed with that Phil was!! After a few words the chap moved and we were able to get a few decent shots to remind of the spectacle. As the sun rose we moved to a closer spot which was also very quiet and we stayed there until the sun came fully up. Considering the incredible age of the building it is in amazing shape with lots of reconstruction projects funded by countries from all over the world. Despite the rain and cloud it was worth getting up so early to see the sunrise and we walked into the inner temple area with the five huge towers over us. There are four large bathing pools in the inner area and along all the outer walls are carvings depicting battles and legends from Angkor time. Along one wall a large carving is being restored shoing the legend of the churning of the milk. It shows a serpent being pulled around a mountain by demons on one side and gods on the other. The mountian is stirring the sea of milk and churning the elixir for everlasting life. The carving is being damaged by rain through a damaged roof but a life size photograph is there so tourists can still see it. We spent almost three hours looking around the temple as it is pretty big. The light was beihnd the temple though in the early morning so we had planned to return for an afternoon to see it in a better light. We had our breakfast on the way out and rejoined the tuk tuk to continue our tour of the grand circuit route. We drove out through the south gate and stopped to visit Phnom Bakheng which is built on top of a hill with views across to Angkor Wat. It gets very busy for sunset with elephant rides to the top. We were the only ones there and it took us about fifteen minutes to walk to the top. We stopped and took in the views across to Angkor Wat and Tonle Sap lake in the distance then went back to the bottom to meet our driver. We drove on past the Bayon and realised we were driving past the Elephant terrace as we could see a long row of carved elephants we had missed on our previous visit as we had walked along the top and couldn't see them !! We went through the Northgate of Angkor Thom and stopped to see Preah Khan where we took a guided tour. The temple had been a Buddhist monatery and was dedicated to the kings father but when the grandson became king he was hindu and all the Buddhist symbolism was destryed. You can see where carvings have been scratched away and some carvings of the Buddha in the lotus position have been altered into Hindu gods. The next temple was Neak Prean which was a collection of eight ponds representing a lotus design around a central one. Some children were swimming in the bigger pool and we sat watching them enjoying themselves for a while before taking a walk round then back to the tuk tuk. We had lunch then visited Ta Som which has a huge tree growing through its Eastern gate almost destroying it but it is supported with a few planks to make it safe !!! Then we went on to see Pre Rup which is another temple mountain so we had to climb up alot of steep steps again. It was really hot and sweaty but there was a little breeze at the top thankfully so we could get some relief. We took inthe jungle views and chatted to a group from England who had flown in frm Thailand for a few days and were hot and bothered too. After a full day of temples we headed to Angkor Wat to see it in the afternoon light. When we got there it looked totally different to the morning as the sun was lighting up the front. We had great views across theit from a pond at the front. There was a mirror reflection there and we were ablle to get lovely pictures of us there. We had another quick look round to see the difference the light made to the inner parts of the temple then went back to the hotel. After a shower we went to town and booked ourselves a table to see a traditional Apsara dancing show and have dinner the next night at the Temple bar. Then we went to the night market to see a short film about the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian history. We were the only people in the small cinema and watched the 40 minute film. It was pretty incredible what happened in Cambodia and the film was pretty sobering stuff to watch. We ate at the Island bar in the middle of the night market and then bought a couple of souvenirs. We were looking at some T-shirts but Phil felt really faint so he shot off to get a cold drink leaving Liz with the negotiations on price. He arrived back after a few minutes feeling a bit better, we bought the Tshirts then went out of the market to get some air. Phil felt alot better once we had lef tthe market so we went to Pub Street and sat in a bar there to have a drink. One drink turned into a few cocktails and lots of people watching. There was lots of Ting Tong activity with really nasty older European men with young locals nad some pretty blatant prostitution going on. A really young girl was walking round on her own selling roses and it was 1.30 in the mornig...what a life!! We gave her some money in the hope that maybe she could go home but she was there for a lot lnger. You are advised not to give any money to the beggars but they break your heart and a few pence to us is worth a meal to them so its very difficult to say no sometimes. Some street kids were playing in the street and came over to us. We had quite a giggle with them and they even jumped onto the tuk ruk we got in to ride back to the hotel. When we asked where mama was they said sleeping so we weren't too sure what their situation was. We got back in the early hours having been up almost 24 hours!!!

9/11/9 Angkor Wat day three

We met up with our tuk tuk at 8am to drive 40kms out of Siem Reap to Bantreay Srey. It was a great drive out there past many villages and rural life. We passed the landmine museum but we didn't go in although others had said it was pretty good. When we arrived the temple was very commercial with concrete built resturants and shops as well as a huge car park. We went to look round the temple which looks very different to all the others as its built from red sandstone so has lots of differetn colours in the sunlight. Unfortunately is was quite cloudy when we arrived so we didn't see the range of colours but the sun did come out before we left. It had very detailed carvings all over the walls but there were so many people there visiting that we struggled to get any clear views for our photos. A group of young monks were visiting the temple and they were as much a tourist attraction as the temple itself poor things. Next we drove onto Bantreay Samre which is a flat temple but with simimlar design to Angkor Wat. Our next stop was at East Mebon temple which had large elephant sculptures on all corners and steps up to the middle where there are five towers. Banteay Kdei was the next stop which is a large monastic complex with examples of the removal of Buddhist images by rule of a Hindu king. The Buddhas have been scratched away or defaced to create Hindu images. The building is in a pretty poor state but thats due to the poor quality stone used for its construction. The last temple of the day was Prasat Kravan but it was the smallest and least impressive of the ones we'd seen. We decided to finish the day with a last visit to Bayon, our favourite hoping the light would be better than when we visited before. The light was great and there were hardly any tourists about so we were able to get some better shots and enjoy the place in peace. We returned to the hotel feeling very hungry and had spring rolls and an Angkor Beer, relaxing for a while. Then we got showered and changed to get to town to see the dance show we'd booked. When we got to the resturant there was no record of our booking and all the front tables were taken so we ended up in some pretty bad seats with limited view. We watched the first half of the show then were able to move forward to the front as a large party left. The dancing was very precise with minute movements of the girls fingers and toes. The costumes were traditional very colourful ones and we enjoyed it. The musicians sat to the side of the stage and were playing instruments we hadn't seen before. The dancing was traditional APsara dancing and each dance told a story from legend or folklore which was introduced in English thankfully so we could keep up. After the show we went to the night market to get a fish foot massage after three days walking round the temples. We had our feet cleaned first and then Liz dunked her feet in. The fish came swimming over really quickly and immediately started munching aay. It was really ticklish and it took a while before she could keep them under the water with the fish sucking on them. Phil then sat and dunked his feet in . He couldn't stop laughing as it was such a funny sensation but eventually got used to it and could keep his feet in the water. We got ourselves a cold beer and sat back to enjoy the strange feelings around our feet which had started to feel quite nice. A group of Americans arrived and were watching the fish round our feet and all decided to give it a go. They reacted the same way as us all laughing and struggling to keep their feet under as it was so ticklish...definately one of the strangest things we have done so far. We stayed being eaten foe about half hour then we all got out and thought our feet felt softer. Phil said that was because they'd been under water for half hour..he may have had a point but we all wanted to believe in the fish. We got xhatting to a couple from the American group who were living in Saigon and ended up joining them for a few drinks in the Island bar in the market. Phil had intended to get himself a T-Shirt with the BAyon on it but the demon drink took over and all the stalls were shut by the time we left the bar. We found ourselves a tuk tuk and drove back to bed.