We arrived in Siem Reap (home of the Angkor temple complexes) and checked in to the Tasom guesthouse after a 4 hour minibus journey from Battambang, not unbearable (or maybe we're just getting used to it!) We headed out for our now familiar orientation session into town and to locate some grub.
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| The river running through Siem Reap, inventively called 'Siem Reap River' |
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| Taking shelter from the heat of the day - covered bridges are a great idea! |
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| Cool water wheel by the riverside |
Siem Reap is by no means the largest city (Phnom Penh is the biggest and sleepy, quiet Battambang the second) but the busy streets and city feel are really driven by the fact that every second person here (or more) is an Angkor Wat visitor and the town is heaving with businesses looking to make the most of the captive tourists.
That being said, the old market is a pretty cool place to visit housing the typical tourist stalls and some local businesses too but bizarrely enough, it is almost as bad as Some Indian cities for the constant cries of 'tuk tuk' or the new cry of:
'Hello ladysir (all one word, they are not suggesting you are a ladyboy but asking Ana and me in one go), you wan' massarrrrrrr' (massage).
It gets pretty tiring but unlike India if you say no once or maybe twice, they tend to leave you alone, then you walk into the next one who ignores what they've just clearly overheard and you start again. Still, its a lively place with good food and entertainment whilst you plan your temple exploring.
We grabbed a pizza in the very un-Cambodian named 'Pub Street' and walked along the river, through the covered bridge and back to the guesthouse for a relax and preparation for tomorrows Angkor assault.
Grabbed a quick street stall dinner of stir fried veg/chicken and crashed back at Tasom.
Next day, up early doors to the included breakfast (in most Asian countries a western breakfast included in the stay means baguette and eggs 'your style', here is no exception (may meed to get our cholesterol levels checked soon!)
Egged up, we rented a couple of old creaky bikes and started the pedal to the temple complexes as the day started to warm up.
Before I arrived in Cambodia I did think that Angkor Wat was the only thing to see and that was it, I was very wrong - the old city of Angkor consists of many, many temples and temple complexes spanning a pretty big area so we decided to get a 3 day pass (valid for a week for 3 separate day visits, for those who are interested this is USD40 per person).
En route to the ticket office we cycled alongside a guy who introduced himself and stuck with him for the morning, his name was David and he was on a long cycling trip through Asia he had started his Vietnam to Thailand route the previous year and was not able to finish this time around so here come back this year to complete this leg through Cambodia and into Thailand, pretty hardcore!
We stopped at the ticket office and had photos taken for the tickets to prevent dodgey passing the tickets round and immediately we left the office we got stopped again at a ticket checkpoint, typical Cambodia! We followed the road the 6Km or so to the first temple complex and averted our eyes from Angkor Wat as it was not planned for this morning and we didn't want to spoil it for the next day ( think we both had a sneaky peak and it was pretty awesome looking!)
The first place we stopped was Prasat Kravan, seemed pretty cool, the only brick structure in the complexes with some pretty cool carvings inside 3 narrow tall towers.
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| Khmer towers - interesting carvings inside but quite a small site. |
Not quite what I expected but it was interesting for 10 mins or so. Back on the bikes and onwards in the now sweltering heat, getting pretty uncomfortable and hard work on these fixed gear granny bikes even on the flat! Next up, Prasat Banteay Kdei a monastic complex (most of the surviving lone temples are) this is more like it!
This is a heavily ruined but still surprisingly intact sprawling structure, its incredible that you are just allowed to wander in and out and over the remains of this amazing place, I could have stayed here for hours as it does make you feel like a real explorer and it remains one of my favourite places to see here! After this we headed across to the Trapeang Srah Srang, essentially a huge reservoir built with the temple complex.
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| This looks more like it! If I can just avoid the guy selling the $1 guidebooks. |
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| Surprisingly intact structure and loads of rooms and courtyards to explore |
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| Indiana Jones I am not! |
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| Ruined courtyard |
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| Not sure what this spider is but they all weave the same zig-zag pattern zigzag pattern near where it puts its legs in the web - any ideas? |
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| Long corridor with cool carvings. Maybe I should be a guide round these ruins? |
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| and this is a carving of a lady...or a goddess, to keep the monks happy. |
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| An ancient 'no-entry' sign |
One of the interesting things about Ankgor as a city is how water was used and managed to support the city, the large reservoirs, moats and drainage and water channels are key to the city and are pretty amazing and complex given the age of the place. By this point we are starting to suffer in the heat of the late morning sun so head back the 7-8KM back to the hotel for a well earned siesta after a slap up burger and Pad Thai lunch at the 'continental cafe'.
After the worst of the heat had passed we headed back out on the rickety and in my case noisy clanking machines, to Angkor Thom, the largest complex by far which consists of several separate sites all within a large, square walled compound. First up was the central monument, Bayon, another monk complex with hundreds of rooms and twisting corridors and passageways to wander about in and explore, stumbling across the odd Buddha, lingam or artist painting and selling images from the site. Oh, and some Monkeys too!
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| Starting again in the afternoon - gateway to Angkor Thom ahead. |
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| A very narrow gateway to navigate amongst the tuk-tuks, cars, other bikes and pedestrians. They could have built this wider! |
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| Monkey. Just hanging out...no rude comments please, we're all grown ups ;) |
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| Bayon. Awesome maze of chambers and rooms to wander round in pretending your a real adventurer. |
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| It's a large structure and one of many in this complex. |
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| Sweaty selfie - its hot and late in the afternoon and Andy looks odd. |
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| Pretty awesome place and its mostly still standing after over 400 years! |
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| More bayon views. If you think this looks samey, wait until I put together the slide show to bore you all with when I get back :) |
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| Believed to represent the king's face (thanks wikipedia) |
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| Some of the trees around the site are huge and have large spaces inside - I could get in this one! |
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| Another crazy tree |
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| Where's wally? (wrong! she's taking the picture ;) ) |
After Bayon, we cycled on to the Bauphon and Phimeanakas sites and also the intricately carved 'elephant terraces'. These are all amazing structures and offer great views of the surrounding environment. We also saw the strange individual towers opposite the elephant terraces. In the 15th century a Chinese historian said that these towers were used to resolve disputes, apparently the king would command that the 2 arguing parties would be locked in a tower and the first to leave the tower unwell would concede, not sure if there is any proof to support this proposal but I like it!
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| 'Pyramid Temple' |
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| Just exploring. |
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| These are the towers that were allegedly used for the resolution of disputes. 2 go in and the first to leave ill, loses the argument! |
Time for sunset so back to Bayon at the centre to watch the sun fall below the incredible structure and then pedal like hell back to the hotel to avoid meeting the stream of tuk tuks in the failing light.
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| T-shirt photo at Bayon just incase the Angkor one doesn't work |
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| Look how big my t-shirt is, I mean look how big this temple is. |
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| Andy could be left with these all day and not even realise I was gone. |
A quick pit stop for the amazing sunset scene on the southern bridge exit of Ankgor Thom and then back to the guesthouse and a brief slap up $2 meal at a street food stall.
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| Pretty amazing view of the sun setting from the Angkor Thom bridge |
Outside of the Tasom guesthouse, the main road is closed as they are laying a new surface. Closed Cambodia style that is, at each end there are barriers completely blocking all road traffic and bikes. This works really well until a local actually wants to use the road when they just get off their bikes and move the barriers and carry on through the construction traffic, freshly poured concrete and dangerous open man holes, the public obviously are happy with understanding the risks and the policeman looking on is not getting out of his plastic chair for such a minor infraction so the road laying continues around the traffic. Crazy! Having said that its a long way round and the locals are doing it, so through we go, weaving around fresh concrete, holes and steamrollers, argh!
Up at the crack of dawn (actually about an hour before) today, stumbled downstairs and hopped on the rickety bikes and started the bleary eyed cycle to Angkor Wat this morning for sunrise. We were wearing head torches to avoid being mown down by the stream of tuk tuks that over took us halfway to the temple full of still dozing tourists missing out on our fresh air experience (why didn't we get a tuk tuk again?)
Arrived outside Angkor Wat itself just as the sky was turning red, crossed the bridge over the moat and was presented with the classic front on view of the Wat in the distance with the sun rising behind it, it really is incredible and atmospheric. To get the classic photos that you see everywhere, the guide book recommends that you stand by the ' North reflecting pond' which I suppose is why about 1500 people were trying to stand in that spot where maybe a hundred could comfortably fit, however maybe 20 metres away there is a very similar view that you can actually see, so I stood there! Made sure we got the T-shirt shot in here (had been waiting specifically for this one in Cambodia) and as the sun climbed a little higher, we headed inside to try and see a bit before the crowds descended (we needn't have worried as the photographers weren't moving for a while)
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| Made it in time. Sun rising over Angkor Wat |
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| Yes! Got the T-shirt shot I was looking for! |
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| Now I can just gaze on nonchalantly... |
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| Ana's 'T-shirt shot' |
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| Bloody tourists ;) |
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| Quiet inside - until sunrise finishes |
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| Sun peeking over the internal walls |
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| Ana and angkor wat. |
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| Ana and angkor wat ... again |
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| My second favorite sunrise shot and... |
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| ...I couldn't find my favorite so this will have to do ;) |
We had an explore around the outer terraces which are in amazing condition, Angkor Wat is the most well preserved and intact monument of them all (hence the fame) and it really is a pretty special place, slightly spoiled by another Cambodia police moment as a guy who identified himself as a police man wanted a bribe to gain access up to a higher platform that was apparently free after the sun had risen, another con for another 'just a couple of dollars' so I climbed some nearby ladders to get the same view instead, too early to have a sensible discussion.
We explored the inside and gardens of Angkor Wat for a good few hours and as the day started to heat up a little we were starting to flag after the early start. We made a hasty retreat for lunch and a rest back in town.
Headed back out to Ta Prohm in the afternoon famed for being the temple in the Tomb Raider movie. This also did not disappoint, it was a real experience to walk amongst the partially ruined structure with dead ends, rock falls and some intact rooms and walls. We also found this awesome spider just hanging out in the ruins which was literally the largest I have ever seen - leg span bigger than my face. Quite an exciting find! We had a really good wander round here and enjoyed the crazy shapes of trees growing and rooting on top of temple walls and roofs, it is exactly how you might imagine a ruin to be from the Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider type films - very cool! After we had finished at Ta Prohm, we made our way back via the Bantaey Kdei ruins we had seen the day before for a longer look around, being in these places surrounded by the wildlife is a pretty special feeling, especially if you can find a quiet spot away from the main tourist trails, a great place to soak up the atmosphere!
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| You're allowed to wander everywhere! |
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| So of course we did.. |
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| I'm in there somewhere |
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| And yes, Andy is in a tree...again. |
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| Octopusivus treevius - Latin for Octopus tree |
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| Claire - is this what the front of Wallace looks like since we've been away? |
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| Nature boy strikes back! |
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| The return of the octopus tree, this time it's a different one |
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| Temple selfie - just for you Shan-Patz |
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| Bats nesting above |
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| Awesome structures |
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| The temple entrance |
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| Shrine nestled away inside of the temple |
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| These places are pretty big! |
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| He got a little closer... We did see one guy hold his hand up to the spider to put its size into perspective- braver than us. |
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| Andys new nemesis - the orb weaver |
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| Temples + sun = a pretty good picture |
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| Quiet spot at Bantey Kdei surrounded by butterflies and dragonflies. |
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| There's one now... |
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| ...and another. |
After Benteay Kdei we After we carried on to Phnom Bakheng, a high viewpoint providing a view out over the Angkor area, great views of the afternoon sun and we headed down before the masses arrived at the end of the day, we retreated to the cool AC haven of a local coffee shop for a couple of shakes and a cool down before the final cycle back to the guesthouse and trying to rest the cumulative saddlesore from the dodgey bikes!
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| It was a hot and sweaty climb to get up here. |
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| But we made it! |
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| Buddhist monk surveying Angkor Wat. This was taken just before he got his camera out! |
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| Lizard, gekko number 402 |
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| Lush surroundings-literally! |
Headed to a Thai place for green curry and noodle dinner, great food but pretty naff service as the owner just wanted to watch a movie throughout our meal and didn't move or turn the volume down whilst his only customers in his huge restaurant ate and his staff served, really weird atmosphere!
Back to the hotel for an early-ish night and a day off temple exploring tomorrow! Thirsty work the below was a day and a half of fluid consumption!
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| One more day and we'll have a bowling lane set up. |
Admin to be done today, haircut for me (slightly dodgey but easy to hide the bad bits-not!) and a shave, blog and photo uploading and then out to town for lunch, a new find! Bor bor, traditional Khmer rice porridge and its really tasty, this was made with mushrooms and veg and we polished off a couple of traditional khmer deserts too, an interesting experiment but Cambodia not so good at the deserts... sesame deep fried pastry with sweet filling and a tapioca and corn dumpling desert with...sweetcorn, bit weird!
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| Bor-bor aka yum,yum |
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| Andys idea of desserts... hes not getting to choose again. |
In the evening we headed out to a bar to see some traditional Khmer dancing, interesting and another variant of the peacock dance (although nowhere near the comedy value of the Nepali Tharu peacock dance) wrapped the day up with dinner at an outdoor barbecue and an early night for our final temple day tomorrow.
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| Khmer dancer |
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| Khmer peacock |
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| Khmer man with horse on head |
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| Scary Khmer-y |
A relaxed start to the day and decided to head back to Angkor Wat during the day and see what it was like after a full nights sleep! On the way we bumped into this grumpy chap on the road as he tried to bite me as we cycled past! He was stuck in the path of traffic so Andy grabbed a stick and picked him up out of the way - to the amusement of the locals!
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| A little Googling makes me think he is a (grumpy) 'many spotted cat snake' (so its probably not that !) Luke - help me out here! |
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| Think he had been hit by a bike hence his mood but managed to get him off the road and think he was OK. |
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| Angkor Wat during the heat of the day - very few other people daft enough to be here in this heat! They will swarm back later! |
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| Huge carvings along the temple walls depicting battle scenes. |
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| Inside Angkor |
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| Inside Angkor again |
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| Inside... you get the idea |
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| View from Angkor Wat out across the gardens and grounds beyond the temple walls. |
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| weeee....last ride back to the guest house! |
Later in the evening we had booked a table at a rather snazzy food joint as a bit of a treat, 'Cuisine Wat Damnak' has a contemporary Khmer taster menu that changes each week, so we went to try it out. Pretty cool experience and some really nice dishes so we took photos of them to share them with you lucky lot ;) all washed down with my first and only glass of red in the last 4 months! (Roll on South OZ, NZ and South America ;) ) ...
(Ana here... Hang on, he's lying - he had plenty of vino on our Kathmandu to Hanoi flight so don't feel too sorry for him, he's not missing out!!)
(Andy here...a glass of wine every 2 months does not mean i'm not missing out!)
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| The Amuse Bouche, cooked lotus stem salad. Bouche amused :) |
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| Marinated prawn salad with lemongrass and herbs, ambarella and winged beans. |
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| Crispy beef tongue with shiny cresson, tonkin jasmine flower, sesame dressing and deep fried shallots. |
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| Braised maam with pork, tomato and green peppercorn. Herbs, flower and local crudites. |
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| Tonle Sap Puffer fish with pounded coconut and fresh coconut tree heart salad. |
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| Calamari and minced chicken soup with preserved cabbage, chrysanthemum leaves and Chinese celery |
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| Spicy Sanday fish curry with green jackfruit and holy basil. |
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| Pan fried red snapper with mushrooms and rice porridge. Clam jus and lemon basil |
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| Caramelised palm sugar and star anise braised pork with crispy shank, lotus root, stem and seeds. |
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| Wild Cambodia cinnamon churros with burnt sticky rice cream. |
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| Fresh mango sorbet phnom culen, vanilla pannacotta and cashewnut shortbread |
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| Sour (very!) fruits with mixed sugar,chilli and salt |
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| Full and happy! ... It's tough being a backpacker :) |
The following morning (still full) we were picked up from the hotel and whisked off to the bus station for our next port of call, Kampong Cham...
