We left Malaysia at 6.50 this morning, it was an early one, and arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia 7.50am local time. The airport was beautiful, temple inspired with the pointy roof, it was almost not even an airport, only the planes really gave it away. We got the visa, and then they scan your finger prints! Our tuktuk driver "D" was waiting for us with a sign to take us to The Siem Reap Hostel (free ride whoop whoop).
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| D taking us to the hostel |
The hostel was awesome, it had a pool!
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| Sweet pool |
We walked around town, saw Old Market (this crazy place that is a maze of clothes, trinkits, food, and pretty easy to get lost once you are inside).
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| Yes he is cool |
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| Scratching round for some gypsy pants |
We had 50cents Anchor beers and then went to bed early we were tots pooped.
Thurs 14 June
4.30am start this morning, to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, met our tuktuk driving he was really nice, but we didn't catch his name tho. We got there, a few people were around, this little kid comes up, "morning you want coffee, where you from?, Ok you come to my stall after ok and get a coffee", really cute but I can see this going to be a common trend all day. We got a good perch on the side of the pond and waited for the sunrise, an asian guy next to us pulled out some tweezers and started plucking his beard whilst waiting, it was hillariously random! So then the sun came up.
We walked around the first massive temple, the one behind ell in the picture above (Angkor Wat). Mind blowing, the detail in the walls that still remains after all the years! Ok now some more photos ( I think I took maybe a casual 300 or so throughout the whole circuit)
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| check out the derelict booty |
We were at this site (Angkor Wat) photos above, for about 2 hours, it was getting hot and was only 7.30 in the morning eeeeish so we got a water and headed out to find our tuktuk man to go to the next site. Next was Bayon Temple, its spires had faces on them, you see in the pictures below.
Off to the next temple, and the whole time we were thinking holy shit you have to be nuts or well keen to cycle this route in the heat, it was so hot just walking around the temples let alone then having to get on a bike and peddling your ass to the next one.
Each time you get to a new temple, children come up to you trying to sell you something, or cold drinks inviting you into their stall, if you talk to them and tell you where you are from they start reeling off these facts about New Zealand, like John Key and the population, was quite impressive actually.
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| Ell ran up these steep beasties |
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| regretting his decision |
There was an entourage for a wealthy Japanese man who contributes to the restoration of the temples, so there was popo trailing and leading his troupe of cars, was pretty flash. Each temple we went to had some section of it that was being restored or reinforced, you can see in some of the photos the metal bars holding up parts of the temples. Here they also have a lot of people sweeping, like sweeping the sides of the roads ( it is a dirt track so pretty much just sweeping leaves..) that you travel along to each temple, its a really clean place.
We bought a temple rubbing from one of the many people that were selling them around the temples ( I'm not sure if they are actually allowed to do this as everynow and then you would see a group of them looking panicked and packing up their stuff in a hurry then gapsing). A frog jumped onto my leg while I was walking, it was hillarious I shat myself then realised what it was as it hopped away from me.
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| this little girl was the worst she followed us to the tuktuk and put her hand in it while it started to drive away, she was selling bracelts |
We got back to the hostel around 11.30 and were pooped, we hadn't had breakfast so we chowed down on lunch then headed up to the room to snooze. We went real authentic and had dinner at a mexican place that had $1 tacos, and $1.50 Margaritas... It was good. In saying that we did not really see any food stalls, the only thing we saw was pancakes and we have kinda been there and done that.
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| Finally caught one of these elusive fuckers |
Fri 15 June
Ell was up at 6.30 this morning, he is addicted to Sherlock holmes tv series that Sean put on my harddrive, so he was up watching that. We had a khmer styled lunch it was delish, I had sweet and sour pork and Ell had bbq skewers.
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| School kids |
Then we hit old market and bought a whole lot of stuff, yay for me, turns out Ell is an excellent bargainer I just stand there like a goose. Back at the hostel we met some Canadian chicks with whom we played crazy 8s then joined by and english chap and then played beer pong - longest game ever the girls were not so good. Then we hit Pub street and partied.
In a nutshell, "lady you want tuktuk?" Cambodia is awesome.
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