After a chilling experience in Phnom Penh, we decided to lift our spirits that evening by gracing our presence at "the place to be" in the city - The Heart of Darkness, or The Heart as locals call it. More of a nightclub than a bar but apparantly it's one of South East Asia's classic night spots. With its dark and edgy feel and beats to a different tune, for a one off it was great. And the cheap 'beverages' definately put a lighter note to the end of our time in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately The Heart stays open until the last person leaves - which we came to learn - as the last people to leave......

An early morning flight as you can imagine was great fun.... With only an hour of sleep, heads still banging from the last song the dj played, and me being the greatest of flyers...??? - our hours trip to Siem Reap wasn't to eventful! Thank god we had a pool at our accomodation. After checking in and dumping our bags, we all seemed to gather slowly one by one at the pool. It was time to shake of the hangover as the next 3 days were going to pretty full on visiting the wonderous Angkor Wat........

Having Angkor, one of humanity's most audacious architectural achievements as it's backyard, is like sitting on a development time bomb: eventually it had to go BOOM! Siem Reap as become one of the most popular highlights & wonders of the world over recent years due to the constant discovering of Angkor Watt. As you drive through the town, new guesthouses, hotels and eateries are flooding more and more out towards the border. Even the hotel that Angelina Jolie resides in on her visits to Cambodia (Amansara Resort) now has the street name "Road to Angkor".

Busy day ahead, as it was time for a full days exploration of just some of the hundreds of temples within the grounds of the overwhelming Angkor Wat.... I was prepared for some divine inspiration!!! The temples of Angkor, capitol of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire, are the perfect fusion of creative ambition and spiritual devotion. Between the 9th and 13th centuries the Cambodian devaraja (god-kings) strove to better their ancestors in size & scale culminating in the world's largest building, Angkor Wat. The hundreds of temples surviving today are the sacred skeleton of the vast political, religious and social centre of an empire that stretched from Burma to Vietnam - a city which at the time boasted a population of one million when London was a scrawny town of 50,000 inhabitants. The 'lost city' of Angkor became of intense interest in the late 1860's when a group of talented and dedicted archaeologists and philologists stumbled across the temples as they ventured through the jungle. From 1908 they made a massive effort to clear away the jungle vegetation that was breaking apart the monumnets and temples, and started to rebuild the damaged structures, restoring them to their original grandeur.

I was lucky that over the 3 days I had in the lost city, with a fantastic guide I got to make the most out of 4 of the most magnificent structures of not only Angkor Wat, but of anything i have ever witnessed in my life - Banteay Srey, Ta Phrom, Bayon & of course Angkor wat..... The temples are believed to represent the cosmic world, set in perfect balance, symetry and composition. They are scattered over an area of some 160sq km, but the main cluster remaining near Siem Reap.

Banteay Srei, although tiny in comparison to the others, is considered to be the jewel in Angkor's artistic crown. This temple can't take up more than around 80sq m but is such a contrast from the others. Again, mesmorised by what i was visualising, it's impossible not to be impressed by the eleborate carvings covering the doorways and walls. They are so defined it actually looks like woodwork. It's hard to imagine how anyone could create such details in stone.

Ta Phrom (aka Tomb Raider Temple) is one of the most popular of the Angkor temples. It does look like it has fell straight out of a film set for Indiana Jones. It was infact, used as the set for Tomb Raider - hence it's nickname! It is pretty awesome that as one of the largest edificies, it has been left much as it looked when the first French explorers set eyes on it more than a century ago. Much of the temple is being digested by nature, and by this i mean huge tentacle-like roots of mature trees slowly strangling the stonework. You have to actually witness such a sight to comprehend the actual size of this devouring jungle. Never in my lifetime could i ever have imagined this. Inside, it's a maze of narrow corridors and crumbling stonework. You could use a full spool on your camera for this one temple alone.

Bayon lies in the fortified ancient city of Angkor Thom. Five monumnetal gates, each topped by four serence faces of Avalokiteshvara, mark the entrance into the fortified city, just north of Angkor Wat. Ever get the feeling someone's staring at you? There are 216 gargantuan faces of Avalokiteshvara watching over this memorable temple. 4 faces to each of the 54 towers - one happy, one sad, one calm and one giving - all identical throughout the towers. The intricate carvings and architectural design are mind blowing and by far my favourite of all the temples.

Walking from temple to temple, it really does feel like a lost world. You can see nothing of the outside city, just wading through grass, passing random fallen stonework from decaying temples, vines hanging from the massive overhanging trees intertwining with the structures. It really is a very surreal experience. At one point i did feel like showing off my Lara Croft moves swinging from vine to vine, running up walls etc but the rain started and i didn't want to slip.... :-)

The next morning was an early one. We wanted to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat - an apparant unmissable sight to behold. 4.30am arrived and it was time to get there. Pitch black, tired and crabbit, we headed off in the peeing rain. A few of the others started moaning that they wanted to go back to bed and it was too cold and too early and blah blah blah..... Of course, i wasn't missing this for the world - even if it turned out to be crap. So on and on i went about how this is a once in a lifetime thing, never again will we see a sunrise over Angkor Wat, it'l be awesome...etc...etc..etc (i did go on a bit...)........

We found a spot pretty close to the front of the entrance on a small pagoda. A little boy was running around selling coffee, which we all had 4 of each, and then we basically just had to sit and wait. We were told sunrise usually happens around 6.10am....so we sat... and waited.... and waited.... and waited.....

It was starting to get light about 5.40am but it was soooo cloudy. There was absolutely no way we were seeing a sunrise this morning. The rain had stopped and it was starting to get warmer, but still no sun. 6.10am came and went but no beautiful sunrise was spotted. Did manage to take lots of pictures from when it was dark to when the sun finally came up in the hope that I would catch even just a glimmer....nothing!

The actual temple of Angkor Wat is incredible as it soars skywards and surrounded by a moat. It is definately one of the most spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind. Some researchers believe that a walk from its outer perimeter to its inner confines is a symbolic trip back to the first age of the universe's creation. This temple stretches out into 3 levels surrounded by interlocked galleries. On entering of Angkor Wat, you are greeted by 88 demons on your right and 96 gods on your left along the walkway. Each holding a part of the serpents tail. This is to represent the "Churning of the Milk" which is one of the most celebrated scenes here. It's basically used to signify immortality. It took a few hours to investigate the different angles and structures of angkor Wat but i was truly in awe of this unique place. I can safely say it blew my socks off!!

Until this moment, Angkor was virtually an impossible sight to behold. I had just witnessed what many others could only dream of - one of the most amazing structures created by mankind.....

Later on that afternoon, took a little boat trip on the Ton Le Sap lake to see an actual floating village of over 3000 people. When i say village, i mean village. Everyone lives on boats and there's floating schools, a floating hospital, floating restuarants, a floating church, floating shops... all in the middle of a lake bigger than Scotland! It was amazing to see how people actually live in this community. They go to the shops in a small fishing boat, they visit friends in their small fishing boat, there's even a floating 'petrol station' for the bigger boats. Floating poolhall, floating basketball court - you name it, this floating village have it!

After an exhausting, but mindblowing 3 days of exploring, it was our last night in Cambodia. Miles being the man about town and knowing Cambodia like the back of his hand, decided to take us to yet another "exciting" local haunt. It was a club just outside of Siem Reap called ZoneOne.... certainly another experience to add to the list. The nightclub was full of what looked like 15 year old girls and boys and the DJ was playing some rather interesting Cambodian rave! The Cambodian 'boys' were loving the fact that there were 3 white girls coming to join them, the Cambodian girls on the otherhand were less than pleased. We were, as always, the only westerners in the place. We decided to hell with it and got onto the dance floor while the boys (Miles & Ben) propped up the bar! Girls were trying to push us of the floor, drawing us looks that could kill. The Cambodian boys however, seemed to have 8 hands... it was time to get off the dancefloor before we were violated. Just at that i done the unthinkable...took a photo. Who knew that was a crime??? Well security quickly escorted me to the main entrance and took my camera off me and shouted "no photo. no photo"!! Got it back when we left but there was no need for the outburst. He could have politely asked me to put my camera away!

Just as we got to the bar, the outrageous rave tunes suddenly flipped to the slowest lovey dovey cambodian hit....it was so cheesy....At that i got a tap on the shoulder.... this little Cambodian boy who was clearly only about 16 asked me to dance...oh...my...goodness.... everyone was peeing themselves and of course telling me its rude to say no and pushing me onto the dancefloor with him. It was the longest song EVER. I think it honestly lasted about 25 minutes. And there's me slow dancing with a little Cambodian boy whilst my so called friends are wetting themselves at the bar.... It was pretty hilarious though! And a good end to my time in Cambodia. I'd had a blast, met some awesome people and seen things i only ever could have imagined in my wildest dreams.... it was all good. And i was pretty sad to be leaving Cambodia after such a short time. I'll be back though.......

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