The flight was really early this morning and got us into siem reap for 830am, we both had sore heads from too much beer on kao San road, we decided to go there for tea and some drinks and had a few too many changs. We sat watching people and trying to decide which of the females were actually men, with quite a few pretty questionable! The guy on the next table was eating a roasted tarantula which was vile, but they like their scorpions too out here.
The flight was only 40minutes yet they served a full meal of Chicken pad Thai to those who wanted it, literally throwing it down the isles and clearing up as quickly!
Had to get a visa on arrival and strangely they work in entirely American dollars.
We got a TukTuk from the airport to the hostel, their form of taxi which is basically a cart with seats pulled by a motorbike. The country is just as I had imagined, sandy roads, dusty, cows, pigs, chickens and dogs roaming the streets.
The roads are absolutely crazy, anything goes, and it doesn’t matter how many go on a bike it seems, so long as the youngest children can be balanced off the side!!
We were thinking the hostel was going to be absolutely awful looking at the makeshift shops etc but it’s really nice, on a par with a travel lodge or something at home, much better than in Bangkok!
On heading up to Angkor Wat we investigated into push bikes but decided we would first find our bearings before braving the roads. We jumped in another TukTuk to take us up to the temples. David and I have very different opinions when it comes to bartering, he wants just to get the absolute lowest price and that is it, I feel tight if it doesn’t seem a fair price and would prefer to meet them half way than not budge on our part..David:’ I need to get a grip’
The way to the temples in the TukTuk the driver took us straight to the gate because he asked me if we needed tickets but I said no thinking he was trying to sell us them…it turns out the ticket gate and the entry ports are km’s away from each other, so he had to take us there. We ended up giving him more dollars than what we originally agreed but the driver wasn’t happy when we got out because he wanted more still!!
Angkor wat is the main temple and is one of the most impressive things we have ever seen, how they built something of that stature is incredible. What I found crazy was the detail but also the perfect symmetry of everything particularly with no machinery to aid.
The heat was also incredible! We went up.one of the pillars in the phot there but the steps were narrow, makeshift and really steep, 2/3rds of the way up I started to get disco knees and David rushed ahead to try and photograph me crawling up the last few steps nervously sweating
We went to find the next temple in the surrounding areas but we had totally underestimated the map, all we find were small shrines and baboons raiding bins, no people either. David asked a tour guide and he pointed us in the right direction explaining it was 3km away….. error number 2. We walked to the next one but decided for the next 2 days we would definitely rent a bike to get around.
Angkor Thom temple was very different to Angkor wat, much smaller, the same steep steps
And LOTS of Chinese tourists!
When David pointed out that I had a sweat patch over my bum from my ever so trendy bumbag we decided it was time to head back for the day, we started the walk back but soon jumped in a TukTuk, David has begun to walk like John Wayne because of his chafing!!
South East Asia 2019 