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The journey from Don Det to Siem Reap was hopefully the worst we were going to experience. Long (19hours) and we were conned (air con 'broke') are the best ways to describe it. My first impressions of Cambodia were not great at all. Thank goodness we had a 5 nights in a nice hotel with a pool waiting for us. After a morning by the pool, we became affiliated with a tuk tuk driver named Song and went to buy our 3 day pass for the Angkor Archaeological Park. Aware that we wanted to start our temple spotting with smaller sites we visited Ta Prohm, which was used as a set for tomb raider the movie. It was a huge dilapidated temple with ancient trees growing through and around it. No picture could capture the vast size of these trees or the temple itself. We headed to watch the sunset at Pre Rup, a more pyramid like structure where we could be above the tree canopy. It was of course full up of Chinese tourists.
We had an early night at pub street and got up at 4:30 to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. So early! This was an amazing sight especially as the temple was much bigger than I've seen in pictures. We were taken to breakfast by Song and went to Angkor Thom, the largest city which housed many different temple complexes. All were incredible (too many to mention) but particularly Wat Bayon which had many large chedi's with Buddha images on all sides. At Wat Baphoun we learnt about how they rebuilt some of the temples after they were destroyed by the Siamese. They called it the largest human jigsaw puzzle and are still building it now! We went back to Angkor Wat and hired a tour guide to take us inside the temple so that we could appreciate the meaning behind the once Hindu temple. It had been a great day and by 2 we were ready to come back after our early start. The next day we went to Banteay Srei 30km away from Siem Reap, the temple known to have the finest carvings in all of Angkor. They reckon that women must have carved them because they are so intricate!
Even after 3 days we did not even see a quarter of the temples that were on offer, but I felt satisfied that we had seen the best! Our last day in Siem Reap was spent at Angkor Wat Putt. Crazy golf set amongst models of the famous temples. Oli won overall but I was awarded a free Angkor beer after my hole in one! We chilled at the pool and got ready to meet our friends from Vang Vieng in Temple Club, Pub street. It was good to see them and exchange stories of our treacherous journeys. The next day we would be heading to Battambang by Share Taxi- not bus!
Stats-
Temples visited: 10
Times witnessed the milk bottle scam: 4
Nights out in pub street: 4
Times the tuk tuk drove on the wrong side of the road: too many scary times
- comments
Rachel What's the milk bottle scam?