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Angkor Wat Tour
It's been a very long day today, we were up at 3am to catch our flight to Siem Reap at 6:30am. We were dropped off at the international terminal, nothing was open so we had to just sit there and wait. After waiting an hour there were still no staff about to check us in. I didn't know Chris found someone in an office and asked when the ticket desks would open. The guy told him to wait and he would get back to him as soon as he knew. Chris went to the toilet and was gone for a while, that's when the guy came up to me and explained in a concerned voice that we were at the wrong terminal and needed to go to the domestic one ASAP! Chris couldn't have chosen a better time to take a s***, in the end I had to go into the mens toilet and tell him to hurry up!
When he came out we grabbed our bags and hurried out of the building and walked around the corner. The domestic terminal was very different to the one we were just in. The international one was modern and expensive looking. The domestic one was more like a bus station all cheap and dirty. There was a really playful kitten walking about, I had to call it over. We have almost finished all our anti bacteria gels, mainly from using public toilets and petting every animal we come across lol. Finally we were called up to check in.
We spent all our money on food in the airport, but then got fed twice on the plane! It was only a small motor plane and we had to get off in Paske to go through immigration. The service was very quick and we arrived in Siem Reap twenty minutes early. We would have arrived even earlier if Chris hadn't gone to the toilet again to finish his s***. I was approached by staff, they told me the flight was waiting for us! I had to go into the mens toilet again to call him and hurry him up, just a little bit embarrassing in front of everyone but Chris didn't care lol.
When we arrived in Siem Reap we took a taxi into the center of the city. We didn't know where to go so accepted the drivers recommendation. He asked where we were from, as soon as we said London he instantly thought we must be rich and was shocked that we were looking for a really cheap budget room. We hate telling people where we are from, they always think we have loads of money which makes us wonder if they put the prices up because of it.
The driver dropped us at the 'Garden Village' hostel. Chris waited with our bags while I went to inspect the room. I was walked through the grounds, I say grounds because it wasn't exactly a building. Dormitories consisted of mattresses lined up outside with mosquito nets over them and were only $1! The private fanned rooms were made of bamboo, they also had a mattress on the floor with a mosquito net covering them. There were two bathrooms for everyone and it looked ok. The fanned room was only $4 and it was only for one night so I said yes to it. Chris was suprised I accepted the room when he saw it, he didn't think it would be up to my standards.
It was still early in the day so we had plenty of time to visit the Angkor Wat temples. We freshened up then agreed a price with a tuk tuk driver to take us around them for the day. We paid $15 to hire him for the whole day and $20 each to visit the temples. We chose to only spend a day there, some people pay for a weekly ticket! They were very cool to see but they do kind of look the same. I actually started to get bored after forty minutes!
We took lots of photos and saw some really creative architecture. The detail that has been calved into every inch of the stone temples was amazing, a lot of the ruins have been damaged but are being repaired so there was a bit of scaffolding about but those areas were closed off. You could tell what was original and what was new by the colour of the stone, it was still cool though. There were a lot of tourists there so at times it was hard to get a decent photo. At one point I had the perfect shot of a whole temple ready, then a couple of Chinese people appeared from the centre of the temple. I waited for them to pass but more people kept on coming. Their group must have had at least forty people in it! I gave up in the end.
One of the temples was considered most holy so I had to rent a t-shirt before entering it. This was because my shoulders were on show. I didn't mind, it was pink!
We had to climb some steep steps to get to the top, the views were pretty amazing, we could see the whole of the grounds and a hot air balloon in the distance.
Another temple had even higher steps, there wern't many tourists at this one, I think everyone's too hot and tired by the time they get here, myself included. I left Chris to go up on his own, he said there were two more sets of steps that led to the top but the views wern't very good, just trees. I'm glad I didn't waste my time going up lol. While he was gone I sat with two Cambodian kids. They were eating a bag of leaves, it was awkward at first, they just sat there starring at me, then I spoke to them. They gave me some leaves to try, they were actually quite nice. The youngest laughed his head off at me eating them then stuffed a whole handful in his mouth! I wish I had a bag of Haribo to give them, they would have gone nuts!
We visited the temples for four and a half hours, our tuk tuk driver offered to take us to see some more but we had had enough. My feet were hurting and Chris was getting hungry so we decided to leave, we had seen 7 temples!
We were filthy! Our feet were coated in brown dirt and you couldnt see the nail varnish on my toes anymore. Siem Reap is easily the hottest place we have been so far in Asia, we couldn't wait to get showered. We both knew our bamboo room was going to be very hot and uncomfortable, I had made a bad decision of agreeing to stay there. We decided we didn't want to stay in the city any longer so asked around to see if there was a night bus to take us to Phnom Penh tonight. We thought we were in luck when a lady said there was one leaving at 12:30 tonight! So we went for dinner and later went back to the lady to book it. The lady looked at us confused, she said the bus was full tonight and thought we wanted to go tomorrow night. We didn't want to spend another day here, it's too hot and to be honest it stinks! There are flies everywhere, they are all over us when we eat, it drives me mad! Some people love the city and stay for days but it's just not for us. So we booked the earliest bus going tomorrow morning to Kratie as we found out we can go direct from Siem reap instead of via phnom penn, saving us at least six hours. Kratie is in a rural part of Cambodia so I think we will enjoy it more there. Hopefully we will spot some indangered Kampi dolphins that live in the Mekong River.
So we were going to have to stay in the bamboo room tonight. I begged Chris that we find somewhere else. I didn't sleep well last night and we were up at 3am, it has been a very long day, I felt desperate for some air con and a clean room so I nagged him for the rest of the evening until he gave in. We asked in a couple of hotels but they were all too pricey. It was getting late so we wouldnt even be in the room for very long, we have to be up at 4:30am to catch the bus at 5am. I pleaded with the receptionist at the next hotel to give us a discount. He offered us a $5 discount so we got the room for $10.
The room looks nice, we have free wifi, hot shower, air con and a comfy bed, and theres no bamboo in sight! We went back to the Garden Village and told them we were checking out. They didn't care because they didn't have to give us back our $4. As we grabbed our bags and walked past the dorm beds, we noticed one guy was sleeping stark b****** naked, we could see his balls hanging out from behind him. Hehe I wouldn't want to be the one sleeping next to him with that view all night.
So we've checked in now and are ready for bed, finally we can rest under the cool air con and Chris has beer in bed with him, waiting for the rugby to start. I think he's pleased I nagged him now :-)
Charlotte & Chris
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