Leaving Phnom Penh we made the six hour journey north to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap is a big tourist town, known for it's locality to the famous Angkor ruins, the site of a series of capital cities of the Khmer Empire for much of the period from the 9th to the 15th century A.D.

The ruins are located amid forests and farmland a short drive from Siem Reap, mostly covering an area of about fifteen miles east to west and about five miles north to south, though some ruins are up to thirty miles away.

The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the temples of Angkor number over one thousand, ranging in scale from non-descript piles of bricks to the magnificent Angkor Wat, apparently the world's largest religious monument.  Together they comprise the premier collection of examples of Khmer architecture, with around one million visitors a year.  Yes, I did just copy that!

Arriving at the bus station we were greeted by a dozen or so tuk-tuk drivers, all frantically shouting at us to go with them to their guesthouse.  As there were only four westerners and we were first off the bus, we got the brunt of this, though amidst all the commotion a European said he had a guesthouse we could try.  As often the locals aren't too trustworthy and see westerners as easy money, we went with the Austrian to Queen's Hotel, although later we discovered you can't trust Europeans in SE Asia either!

Siem Reap is a nice little town, though as you walk down the streets you are constantly hassled by tuk-tuk drivers, market traders, kids begging (normally who are only a few years old and often carrying baby's who are just a few months old), or women offering you "massage...sexual".?

After just a short time in Cambodia this has been the theme, and even as you visit the Angkor ruins you are constantly hassled by kids trying to sell you crap you don't need, or water for four times the price you are used to paying!

Still, on the 21st we got up at 4.30am, had breakfast and got picked up by our tuk-tuk at 5am to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat was built between 1113 and 1150 by Suryavarman II.  With walls nearly one-half mile long on each side, Angkor Wat grandly portrays the Hindu cosmology, with the central towers representing Mount Meru, home of the gods; the outer walls, the mountains enclosing the world; and the moat, the oceans beyond.

The front gate faces to the West, so after buying our $40 each three day ticket, we arrived just in time to see the sun rise and the sky turn red behind the towers and walls.  It was an amazing sight, though unfortunately you have to share it with hundreds of other tourists.

After sunrise we climbed to the top of the central tower of Angkor Wat, a little scary as the steps were just a few inches wide and very steep, but it was worth it to see the carvings and views up there.

After Angkor Wat we continued our tour arround the big circuit of the Angkor ruins, not realising that our tuk-tuk driver was taking us to where he wanted to take us, rather than where we wanted to go, as our guesthouse had told us we could have the driver all day (sunrise to sunset) for $12, where in fact he was going to take us on the big circuit for $15 and the small circuit the next day for $12. 

By about 10.30am we'd finished the big circuit of the ruins, but as we wanted to watch the sunset we had to hang around until 6.30pm, as as soon as he drops you back at your hotel the tour is finished.  This also meant that we weren't going to get to see any of the other ruins that we wanted to see, so we decided to pay him an extra $10 and headed off to Banteay Srei in the northeast and the Rolous Group (some of the oldest temples) in the southeast.

$25 doesn't seem much to us, but we were a bit annoyed that firstly our guesthouse had lied to us about the tour, and secondly Juan, our tuk-tuk driver, did nothing to earn his money and just slept and looked miserable all day as he didn't want to work.  Also the extra $10 was supposedly as the temples were so far away, but all day he only put one litre of hookie petrol (people sell petrol on the black market in whisky bottles at the side of the road) in which cost about a dollar.  Others we spoke to as well got a whole day tour for $12, so although we only paid $25 for a 14 hour tour, our guesthouse did rip us off.

The next day we were off again at 5am, this time to watch sunrise over a lake near Ta Prohm, the location used in Tomb Raider.  Today we went around the small circuit and were gladly finished by about 10.30am as the temperature was near-40 degrees, and yesterday's 14 hours of walking around in baking heat had really taken it out of us (we drank nearly 10 litres of water as we sweated so much....urgh!). 

The highlights of today were Ta Prohm, which has been damaged by overgrown trees which slouch over the ancient temples, their roots wrapping themselves around walls, and the later capital of Angkor Thom, built after the Cham sack of 1177.

The centre of Angkor Thom is the Bayon, which has many towers with faces looking down at you.  It was around the time Angkor Thom was built that the Khmer Empire changed from Hindu to Mahayana Buddhism, so temples were changed to display images of the Buddha and Angkor Wat briefly became a Buddhist shrine.  A subsequent Hindu revival included a large-scale campaign of desecration of Buddhist images, before Theravada Buddhism became established from the 14th century. 

Around the 15th century Angkor was deserted, apparently due to Siamese attacks, although now it is believed to have been due to a water shortage.  In the late 19th century, French explorers started to restore the ruins, and this work goes on today.

After two intensive days of climbing up steep, small steps in near-40 degree heat and visiting temple after temple, it was fair to say we were templed out and looked forward to not seeing another temple for a while, though Angkor is amazing and well worth a few days of anyone's time.  Not sure we were as moved as an American lady we met, who said when she laid eyes on Angkor Wat she began crying, but it was a pretty amazing couple of days.

We got back to our hotel and had an afternoon to relax before meeting some friends from Laos later for beers, and then getting up the next morning at 5am to get the early bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  This is where we realised our Austrian saviour was not all he turned out to be!

We had booked into the hotel for $6 a night, and asked if they had more expensive rooms with TV, etc. but the Austrian's Cambodian wife told us all rooms were $6, and that if we wanted air conditioning we had to ask her.  We did ask her after the first night, only to be told when we checked out that rooms with air-con were $15. 

After she'd already lied about the tuk-tuk being $12 and ours as we pleased, we weren't having this and a big row kicked off, which culminated in us calling his wife a liar after he got really aggressive.  In the end after he threatened us with tourist police and we didn't back down he gave up and we left. 

He had told us we weren't leaving the country without paying, and when we got to the border eight hours later we had a scare when Rich's passport mysteriously disappeared, though luckily it had made it's way to the Vietnam border with another bus so all was well. 

Cambodia has one of the best sights in all of SE Asia, but once you factor in the hassle and people it's not somewhere we'll be rushing back to.

Next stop, Vietnam.