Tuesday 29th March

Up at 5.15 to have the bags packed & put out for collection. We left after breakfast at about 8am on the buses. Ours was freezing cold & despite all attempts to modify it d*** sat with his rain jacket on for the first half of the 5 hour trip as cold air blasted over him. We swapped for the second half when Jane donned the jacket.

The road was lined for miles with local houses in various states of repair & with dry paddy fields with quite a few scrawny cattle grazing on them & were surprised at the amount of logs & firewood we saw on the way. Most of the cooking is done on wood fires in Cambodia & a massive amount is used.

The towns are much like most South Asian towns with the workshops & stalls all open to the street but the traffic on this major road wasn't too heavy, mainly comprising trucks, a few motor cycles & some odd, hybrid, 2 wheel tractors towing trailers a la China.

Eventually we arrived in Siem Reap at the hotel at 1.15, where the rest of the group were staying. Once our baggage had been off loaded we were put in a tuktuk & sent off to our own hotel around the corner. This, the Somadevi Angkor Hotel, proved to be a mere 4 star place with a large swimming pool, a flash bathroom complete with bath etc & well beyond our more spartan standards. We had a couple of beers & some food next to the pool & a short walk at about 5pm. d*** then went to bed exhausted whilst Jane had a swim & read before an early night.

Wednesday 30th March

Up at 4.30am this morning as our guide met us at 5am in the hotel foyer.

Off we went the 7km to Angkor Wat, in a tuktuk, to see the sunrise over the vast temple. Arriving on the eastern side we walked along the north side for about 500m to the eastern side where a big pond was then between the complex & us with about 500 more people, so that we could see the sun rise over the buildings. Unfortunately it was rather a disappointment as the haze from the humidity was so dense that it was a grey blue, rather than a sky blue, sunrise .

We returned back to the temple & climbed to the outer first level where a narrow colonnade protects a huge, finely carved, frieze of the epic mythical battles of Hindu legend between Rama & the demon monkeys. From there we entered into one of the 4 courtyards each around deep, empty pools in which the king bathed. The construction, all in the 11th century, was based on lateritic stone much like lava form, faced with a fine sandstone with all the carving done in situ. Then we ascended to the next level which surrounds the central 4 towers which we walked around. The top level wasn’t open to the public today so, luckily for us, as it has very steep access steps.

Descending, we left via a causeway of 300m through the west gate & off to a cafe at 8.15, on the other side of the moat for breakfast. This was a godsend, as we had been up at 4.30 & our legs were very tired & it was warming up.

After breakfast we went in the tuktuk to Ta Prohm, yet another temple complex, where we saw the effects of the trees growing around the structures. These included ficus & local hardwoods which had huge root structures crawling over their walls & roofs. Conservation work has been undertaken by various national groups but most is to prevent further deterioration rather than reconstruction. Again the scale of the structures is huge but the main difference between this & Angkor Wat was the introduction of towers faced with four faces of Buddha about 4m high in most cases.

By this time we were almost literally steaming in the high humidity & it was a great relief to start on the return journey to our hotel. Our guide, Mr Setha, one of 11 children, had been 11 at the time of Pol Pot’s regime & had been staying with his aunt & uncle in another town. They were arrested & have never been traced & he nearly starved to death. His parents survived but several other members of his family died. He is married with 2 children & works as a guide although he only took a six month course but his English is very good.

Back at the hotel by 10.30 we had a rest before he returned at 3pm for part 2 of the day’s expeditions.

Off again in the tuktuk to Angkor Thom West gate on the wall of another huge complex. On to the Bayon, a Buddhist temple structure with the 4 face towers again & wonderful carved reliefs of life in the area at the time of construction in the 1270s AD. The reliefs were in pretty good condition considering that the colonnade protecting them had long since collapsed & their picture of the life covered a huge range of activities.

Leaving the Bayon we drove to see the terrace of the Elephants & the Leper King. These are about 200m in length & 5m high with reliefs of Elephants & their mahouts & figures of the 7 headed serpent & various Buddhas.

Then at 5.15 we returned to the hotel exhausted but amazed at the amount we had crammed into the day. We ate dinner at the hotel & were in bed not too late.

Thursday 31st March

Had a lie in this morning before breakfast in the dining room at 8.30. After that we took a tuktuk to the National Museum & were surprised to find that entry was $US 12 each. It certainly is a huge museum & to be fair it had excellent video presentations on various aspects of Angkor’s construction & aspects of the life & religion in its heyday. Dick’s knees were very unhappy though & so progress was slow through the various galleries with frequent rest stops. Unfortunately it was very hard to understand the complexity of the area as the kings moved their capitals around & the dates of the various artifacts were hard to comprehend. One gallery was devoted to the 1000 Buddha statues ranging from tiny to fairly massive. The complexity of the Hindu gods was also somewhat confusing to us although the workmanship of the stone carvers was most impressive. It is amazing to us that the general area was the largest city in the world at 1 million plus by the beginning of the 12th century.

One room was devoted to the Khmer language which developed in a Sanskrit alphabet from India. The writing is quite clear but has far more vowels & consonants than the Latin language & it was interesting to see stiele on stone tablets often with various lists etc. They also used parchment & banana leaves but these have all been lost in time. It was obvious that the civilisation had been very advanced at the time & also relatively tolerant.

After 3 hours we gave it away & returned to the hotel for a rest.

In the evening we went down to the night market & Jane purchased a genuine, fake Longines watch for $US10 before we dined in "Pub Street" at a restaurant with the slowest service but very good food at a reasonable price.

We returned to the hotel, Jane packed up & d*** attempted unsuccessfully to use the internet.