Wednesday 1st May

We packed our bags and headed down to the riverside to find some breakfast. We noticed a high presence of police and other 'uniformed' officials that we hadn't noticed before. We wondered what was being planned or maybe it was like this every morning and we hadn't gotten up this early for a while! We sat down by the riverside, which is usually teeming with cars, lorries and tuk-tuk's. Empty…this was odd. Literally after talking about how quiet and nice the riverside is without said vehicles, a protest walked past…! There were mainly women and looking at the signs they were protesting women's rights/abuse etc. it was peaceful enough with the odd megaphone in the background, but once the people had past the tuk-tuk's protest joined in, along with the motos and cyclos. Never have I seen a protest with tuk-tuk's! After 15 minutes the road resumed its chaotic state and we headed back to the hostel to jump on the bus to Siem Reap.

The bus was supposed to take six hours, however it took more like seven, our bus decided to break down due to overheating. However, I now know that car apprenticeships are worthless and to cure an overheated car/bus, chuck a gallon of water all over the engine and then you're good to go! I wasn't complaining! We got back on the road shortly due to arrive in Siem Reap!

We arrived at the bus station outside the city, which is quite small in fact, we found ourselves a driver and got on our way to the hostel. We arrived at our hostel, Angkor Wonder, brilliant name! The tuk-tuk driver tried to get more services from us by saying he'll pick us up tomorrow for the temples. After much disagreement we said we didn't need a tour/driver as we are waiting for our friends to arrive before booking anything. He didn't look too pleased, so we quickly gave him the money and ran inside! The room was nice, a private room with a TV, and we dumped our bags and went in search of dinner.

After some food we had a wonder round the city, which is the easiest thing to navigate round. We went to the night market were they sold all manner of handicrafts! It is all very tempting to buy everything!! Good job Stu is here to stop me! We spent the rest of the evening watching a variety of films that were being shown on the two movie channels on the TV!

Tuesday 2nd May

We woke up late and had brunch/lunch…we can only manage two meals a day, normally brunch and dinner! It's way too hot to eat during the day!

We didn't really do a lot today, we got ourselves orientated with the city, found Ant and Kate's hotel and searched for some good places to eat ready to treat Ant and Kate when they arrived!

We investigated the cost of the temples and which ones we would like to see, the hostel were kind enough to lend us a book about the temples in prep for our tour.

Wednesday 3rd May

We woke up to a text from Ant saying that they had arrived, so we got up and dressed and walked to their hotel which wasn't too far.

It's a nice hotel, a bit too pricey, at $50 a night, too much for our $30 budget each! We sat around for an hour and had a good catch up before heading into town for some food! We had saved some money over the past few days so we could try and make up for missing the wedding by buying lunch!

We quickly nipped back to our hostel to grab our swim gear and ran back to Ant and Kate's hotel, as they had a good swimming pool! It was lovely a cold compared to the heat of Siem Reap. After getting ourselves all pruney we went home to get washed and dressed ready to go out for dinner.

It was a nice change having some friendly and familiar faces for a while! We had a wonder around the night market for a while before going back to the hostel to get a good rest ready to start the first day of the temples tomorrow at 8:30am!

Thursday 4th May

After a few days of lie ins waking up at 7 am was hard! We had booked an A/C car for today's trip.

We first stopped to get our three day pass at a steep price of $40 each (we had to live on $20 a day each for a few days to afford this!) and a mug shot taken, we were on our way to the temples.

We arrived in the park and the first thing we saw was the giant moat that surrounded Angkor Wat, properly the most famous temple here! A little bit of history:

Angkor is a region of Cambodia that served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal monarch" and "god-king", until 1351, when Angkor first fell.

We drove round and carried on North heading towards Banteay Srei, but first we stopped at a smaller temple Pre Rup. Built as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman and dedicated in 961 or early 962. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, laterite and sandstone construction. The temple's name is a comparatively modern one meaning "turn the body". This reflects the common belief among Cambodians that funerals were conducted at the temple, with the ashes of the body being ritually rotated in different directions as the service progressed. It was very small, but still amazing; we spent 30 minutes walking around, climbing the steepest stairs and jumping in and out of windows! It was highly enjoyable! We jumped back in the car and off we went it was a long journey spent looking out the window at the locals that live here. These people who have lived here before the park became a national park and can still live here, but they are not allowed to farm the land so they make do selling food, souvenirs…basically anything and everything!

We arrived at Banteay it was a little bigger than the previous temple but was completely different. This is what I enjoyed most the fact that all these temples were built at different times and by different kings so each one is very different and unique. This temple was very touristy, we wondered round looking at the different inscriptions on the temple and patterns. Banteay Srei is built largely of red sandstone, a medium that lends itself to the elaborate decorative wall carvings which are still observable today. The buildings themselves are miniature in scale, unusually so when measured by the standards of Angkorian construction. These factors have made the temple extremely popular with tourists, and have led to its being widely praised as a "precious gem", or the "jewel of Khmer art."[

On the way back we stopped off at the land mine museum which is in the middle of the park! The guy who owns this had a very interesting story, at the age of 10 he was recruited into the Khmer Rouge to lay down land mines. At this age he didn't know what he was doing was wrong or what hazards these caused. When he grew up he realised what he was doing was wrong and defected to the Vietnamese army to fight against the Khmer Rouge. After the Khmer Rouge was defeated he joined the Cambodian army and after he left he has made it his life mission to defuse and deactivate the land mines that scatters the country. He has deactivated 50,000 mines, which is an impressive number, he used a stick and a hammer to find and deactivate the mines. Pretty dangerous by anyone standards! He was forced to stop due to the dangers he was putting himself in. Now he has received proper training and has helped train further people to deactivate the mines in a safer manner. It is quite a nice story to hear someone trying to rectify their mistakes to make their country safer.

We got back in the car to go to our next temple, Banteay Samré; this one was by far one of my favourite temples. Plenty of places to run, hide and jump around. Built under Suryavarman II and Yasovarman II in the early 12th century, it is a Hindu temple in the Angkor Wat style. We spent a good hour or so getting lost and exploring before running low on battery and re-fuelling at a local restaurant!

We resumed our templing at East Mebon; this one had statues of elephants built on the walls of the temple out of stone. All very impressive! It had similar towers like Angkor Wat, but on a smaller scale! The East Mebon is a 10th Century temple, built during the reign of King Rajendravarman; it stands on what was an artificial island at the center of the now dry East Baray reservoir. We had one of our 'it's a small world' experiences and bumped into Kirsty and Neil from our Russian trip! Was very bizarre but lovely to see them! We arrange to meet up down Pub Street in the city later this evening to catch up!

Time was getting on, as we were planning seeing sunset, and we had two more temple to do so we went off. Neak, "The entwined serpents" is an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circular island in Preah Khan Baray built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII. This temple used to be filled with water, with water fountains but now, its half filled and the silt has blocked the water ways. It would have been impressive to see what these temples used to be like before the downfall of Angkor Kingdom. Most of the temples had water surrounding most of it, which now is just grass of dirt!

Our last temple was a little bit jungleier (yes that is now a word!) Preah Khan built in the 12th century for King Jayavarman VII. It was the centre of a substantial organisation, with almost 100,000 officials and servants. The temple is flat in design, with a basic plan of successive rectangular galleries around a Buddhist sanctuary complicated by Hindu satellite temples and numerous later additions. Like the nearby Ta Prohm, Preah Khan has been left largely unrestored, with numerous trees and other vegetation growing among the ruins. It had a bridge style, either side of the temple, North and South, where the gods were having a tug-o-war with the devils. Most of the bodies were missing heads! There was a few trees growing all over the temple, literally, it was weird thinking how these trees even started to grow on the temples in the first place!

We then quickly drove to the site to see the sunset over Angkor Wat, it wasn't the most impressive sunset seeing at the clouds got in the way too much. At this point we were knackered and decided to head back before the crowd headed home too!

We got back to the hostel and we were literally covered in dirt, my feet looked like they had turned black! Our shower was more than welcomed and after a good scrub we were clean again ready for dinner!

We went to the same food stall at the night market we went the previous night, well the lady literally came up to Stu and said 'I know you, you eat here yesterday!' and grabbed his hand and pulled him in! Not that we minded as they did do some tasty food and smoothies for only 75 cents! A bargain!

We then meet up with Kirsty and Neil to have a few 35 cents beer! It was lovely to catch up and get some tips on Vietnam which I am getting more nervous about! We also went off to the fish spa for only $2 for 30 minutes and a beer! It was the most ticklish thing I have experienced, but then again these fish were sharks compared to the sized fish you get at the foot spas in the UK. Stu couldn't deal with the tickling for long and he brought a crowd of locals that stood and laughed at him for a while! I managed to withstand the tickling for 20 minutes before leaving!

We retired to our hostel early as we had to be up and ready to leave at 4:30 am! I thought Kate was going to kill us when we told her!!

Friday 5th May

I have lost count how many times we have been up before 4 am, each time hurts more! It was actually cold outside and going along the tuk-tuk was even chillier! We arrived at Angkor Wat for sunrise; we sat down and ate our breakfast, supplied by Ant and Kate's hotel! It was lovely! We sat around watching the sunrise and trying to wake up! As soon as the sun had risen, it was BOILING! Literally from 20 degrees to 35 degrees in a matter of 5 minutes! I wasn't feeling too great so made the whole experience worse!

We waited till the sun had rose and set off to explore Angkor Wat, it is set in a huge area, it could fit 6 US aircraft carriers (I found this out later while having a massage!!!) Today it is still used as a religious site; there were many Buddhist monks around the temples. We walked around the outside of the actual temple, which had drawings carved into the wall, all very detailed and beautiful. We entered into the building to see the giant towers that are seen from miles around; it was all very impressive how they built this temple. History lesson:

Angkor is the largest Hindu temple complex in the world, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. Angkor Wat combines two basic plans of Khmer temple architecture: the temple mountain and the later galleried temple, based on early South Indian Hindu architecture, with key features such as the Jagati. The temple is a representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods: the central quincunx of towers symbolises the five peaks of the mountain, and the walls and moat the surrounding mountain ranges and ocean. Access to the upper areas of the temple was progressively more exclusive, with the laity being admitted only to the lowest level. Unlike most Khmer temples, Angkor Wat is oriented to the west rather than the east. This has led many to conclude that Suryavarman intended it to serve as his funerary temple. The temple is admired for the grandeur and harmony of the architecture, its extensive bas-reliefs, and for the numerous devatas adorning its walls. Work seems to have ended shortly after the king's death, leaving some of the bas-relief decoration unfinished.

We watched a couple of Japanese guys, I assume by their crazy clothing, doing random weird poses infront of Angkor Wat. Why? I don't know!

We sat outside on the temple walls and watched a gang of monkeys cause havoc! We kept our distance, seeing as we had food with us and didn't want to be attacked!

We left Angkor Wat across the bridge over the huge moat that surround the site, the biggest moat I have seen!

We got back into the tuk-tuk and headed for Angkor Thom! Angkor was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire. It was established in the late twelfth century by king Jayavarman VII. It covers an area of 9 km², within which are located several monuments from earlier eras as well as those established by Jayavarman and his successors. At the centre of the city is Jayavarman's state temple, the Bayon, with the other major sites clustered around the Victory Square immediately to the north.

We stopped at The Bayon, this was my favourite temple, The Bayon had many faces of the greatest king; Jayavarman VII. It was amazing how each face was perfect, each one! We had a wonder around enjoying ourselves; well I was trying but felt really ill! Kate and I opted to stay at bottom at on one of the temples while the boys hiked the stairs to the top!

We carried on round to the Terrance of the Elephant and the Terrance of the Leper King. The terrace was used king Jayavarman VII as a platform from which to view his victorious returning army. Most of the original structure was made of organic material and has long since disappeared. Most of what remains are the foundation platforms of the complex. The terrace is named for the carvings of elephants on its eastern face. The Terrance of the Leper King, though its modern name derives from a 15th century sculpture discovered at the site. The statue depicts the Hindu god Yama, the god of Death. He was called the Leper King because discoloration and moss growing on the original statue was reminiscent of a person with leprosy, and also because it fit in with a Cambodian legend of an Angkorian king who had leprosy

We stopped off at another temple where they had the steepest stairs I have ever seen. I opted to sit at the bottom while the others climbed, literally! Coming down looked the worse and glad to have stayed at the bottom!

We went to our last temple of the day, the famous Ta Prohm AKA tomb raider temple. It was built in the Bayon style largely in the late 12th and early 13th centuries and originally called Rajavihara; it was founded by King Jayavarman VII. Parts of the temple were used in the film, I have since been meaning to watch the film to try and recognise the scenes. I think part of the film where Lara meets with a monk after floating down the river with a temple in the background. This is Angkor Wat; film companies must spend so much money to film here!

This temple was extremely busy, full of Chinese tourists (my favourite!) we wondered round the really jungley temple where giant trees were growing in the middle and on top of the walls. It was amazing to see, I have taken many photos so many that my camera died and had to borrow Kate's!

It was only 12 but it felt like 5, and we were ready to leave! We headed back and had a nap for a couple of hours before heading into town to have lunch! We then retreated back to Ant and Kate's hotel for a dip in the pool!

After we got washed and dressed we headed back into town for dinner! We went to the same night stall and enjoyed a cheap feast! Ant and Kate had booked a complimentary dinner at their hotel! We meet up with Kirsty and Neil again for another drink! We went to the fish spa but instead got a foot/leg massage and back massage for $4 together! It was lovely, even if Stu was giggling like a school girl every time his feet were touched!

We all agreed we were knackered as we both did the sunrise today, so went home early to bed!

Saturday 6th May

We meet up with Ant and Kate again to have lunch and back to the pool again! It was lovely lying around the pool and cooling down! We left seeing as Ant and Kate had a complimentary massage at their hotel and had a couple of hours to relax and get ready for our last supper! We went back to the night market and had a good shop and got some bargains!

It was a lovely few days having familiar faces from home to travel with for a few days! We said our goodbyes and went back to the hostel and asked to stay one more night, seeing as we hadn't booked our bus or anything yet! Oops!!

Sunday 7th May

Today was spent searching and booking hotel and bus tickets which was easy enough. We opted for the bus and it was only $4 and the boat was $20 and would have taken twice as long! We decided to go to Battambang for a few days until our Vietnam visa kicked in!

We ate for the last time at the night stall, were the women already knew our order! A sign that means to move on!