The bus journey from Kratie, which started out at 07:15, where we had to change buses at midday to a bus where the aircon had broken, finally got to Siam Reap at 17:00. During this journey we decided that there was no way we would be catching a bus up to Laos, which would take over 2 full days non stop, we made the very hard decision to splash out and fly (3 hours). Upon arrival in Siam Reap we were instantly set upon by 7 or 8 Tuk Tuk drivers all virtually begging for our business swearing that they were the best in the business. We eventually chose one chap called Dino who took for free to a number of Hotels until we were happy with the price, location and quality of the room ($7 per night, ensuite, hot shower, satellite TV and two fans). We booked Dino for the next day to take us round the as many temples (including Angkor Wat) as possible, before heading out for a much needed beer and food. Dino was waiting for us bright and early the next morning when we came down from our room, so we decided to skip breakfast and head straight out to the temples to see as much as we could before the midday heat really kicked in. Our first stop was a temple called The Bayon, built around 1200AD, has 216 giant faces of someone called Avalokitesvara (Buddhist religion). This place was awash with tourist and although the architecture was quite stunning in places with great oppurtunities for a good picture, the other tourists kept getting in the way or barging past or standing in front of you while your taking a picture so that they could take a picture of what you were trying to get (half the time I don't think they knew what they were taking a picture of, they just saw you pointing your camera in that direction, so they thought they had better do the same incase they missed out on something), not that I got frustrated or anything, but Claire decided it best we make a quick exit after a while before I accidently pushed a middle aged Japanese tourist of the top of the building! We then decided to get something to eat a drink a calm down a little while Dino gambled his money away at cards with his fellow Tuk Tuk drivers. Afterwards we walked out to some more smaller a secluded temples where there wasn't to many other tourists. There was some really interesting ruins to be seen here, including one called Baphoun, where before the civil war the temple was painstakingly dismantled for restoration and each piece was documented, then the civil war struck and all documents were destroyed! The site has now become the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle as a team from France are now trying to put it all back together again. Dino then took us to a temple called Ta Prohm where quite alot of it has collapsed, but throughout massive trees have grown and the routes of which drape over the stone work in weired and wonderful arrangements. We sat here for a while in the shade of one the trees as the tempurature was well into the 30s and relaxed before we were taken to a few more temples (same-same but different) and then off to Angkor Wat just before sunset. Angkor Wat, which is considered to be one of the wonders of the world, is a massive Hindu temple set in its own grounds and surronded by a large moat. Although the architecture of the building and the amount of work that must have gone into building this structure is quite astounding, I think I was in all quite disappointed with what we saw of Angkor Wat. Maybe it was the end of the day and we were both tired and hot, or the fact we had just visited ten or more temples where the architecture was similar, but in a sentence Angkor Wat didn't cut the mustard for me in terms of a wonder of the world. I was expecting to get a similar feeling as we got when we first laid eyes on the Taj Mahal, as many people we've talked to on our travels so far who have been here have said it was amazing, and maybe this in itself gave me great expectation of what we would see, but as I say the mustard must have gone very hard from the hot midday sun and we only had very blunt knifes to cut it with by the end of a long day of temple spotting. We finished our tour off by scaling a small nearby hill with a temple (of course) on top to watch the sun go down over Angkor Wat, which was quite serene at first, but as we looked back down the hill we saw that this was obviously something every Tuk Tuk & tour bus driver knew about, as the hillside was suddenly under attack from every direction by at least a thousand tourists all trying to get to the summit as quickly as possible to stake their claim on a piece of the temple on which to view the sunset. This was our que to leave ASAP to avoid the rush back down, and so we headed back to our hotel for once again much needed beer and food!