We woke up bright and early (6am) to get picked up from outside our guesthouse to go to Siem Reap. The friends we had made the couple of nights before (Kevin, Julia and Kenny) arranged to get the same bus with us as we had found a really cheap deal. The journey was a cramped minibus to the Cambodian border where we were met by a company that sorted our visas out for us whilst we waited, at first i thought it might be a bit of a scam but the guy from the company walked us all the way through the border to catch the bus the other side. This was a relief for me as I was a bit worried as my visa had run out 3 days previously. It was ok though, I had to pay the equivalent of £10 for each day then I was was fine. It was a bigger bus from the border to Siem Reap and we stopped for dinner at a lovely place where we could watch the sun go down over the beautiful flat countryside. It was a culture shock driving in Cambodia compared to Thailand. The poverty is very apparent and there were many families sleeping in makeshift shelters out of wood and plastic bags on the side of the road. There is also big piles of rubbish strewn on the streets.
It was exciting to arrive at the bus station at Siem Reap as soon as we stepped off the bus we were bombarded by tuk tuk drivers all fighting to take us to our destination. A guy called Pow won and we were soon on our way. Pow seemed really nice and we arranged for him to pick us up the next morning 4:30am to go and see Angkor Wat for sunrise?!?!
Our accommodation was really nice. We were staying at Hak's house which was cheap, clean and in a perfect location. We went out for a drink (and a pancake) to a cool bar called the Angkor What? And had a nice chilled evening, aware of our early morning wake up!
Sure enough the alarm clock at 4am was a shock but we managed to roll out of bed and into the tuk tuk. These tuk tuks are different again, Cambodian tuk tuks are carriages that attach to the back of the drivers motorbike. Slightly more unstable but great fun!
It was pitch black when we got to the temples, we were really excited. Pow told us where the best spot for the sunrise was and we stood in front of the water waiting patiently. It was an amazing experience. The sun rose slowly behind the main temple of Angkor Wot and the darkness became an outline and more and more detail started to appear at the same time as the temple was perfectly reflected in the lake in front. Waking up at 4am was definitely worth it. The temples were amazing. We spent the day walking around and up and down them with a few tuk tuk rides in between. They are just so massive and impressive. I was fascinated by all the intricate carvings all over the stone walls, some patterns and others telling stories. My favourite was Wot Thom - the temple of the smiling faced Buddhas. It's so magnificent and having hundreds of huge smiling faces all around it felt really special. The temples were all extremely derelict and the lack of health and safety was hilarious, the best sign we saw was on the top of a temple where the stones had obviously been crumbling down, it said 'Be Careful!'.
It was a hot hot day and we definitely felt it climbing up and down the steps it was ok though as me managed to stop half way round and found a stall that sold huge coconuts, so we hydrated ourselves nicely giving us energy to see more. The last temple we saw was the Ta Prohm temple which is where 'Tomb Raider' was filmed. It was fantastic, nature had truly taken over the huge stone walls. Trees roots were twisting and winding there way through the stone, walls and windows. Just recently a whole part of the temple had collapsed as one of the trees fell.
After a siesta back at the guesthouse we headed out for dinner and drinks and a little boogie.
We also met Hak that evening who owned the guesthouse, he had been away for a few days and he was so welcoming to us. We did find out that although Pow our tuk tuk driver had been fantastic, we could have saved alot of money booking it through Hak. He kindly organised for us to go to one of the floating villages the next day, we had heard that the one was really touristy but he assured us that the one further down the lake was far less touristy and much better. He was right. The tuk tuk ride out to the lake the next day was fab. It was brilliant to head out of town and be greeted by happy smiling locals waving at the side of the road, the kids were especially adorable. The houses on land were a fantastic mix of colours shapes and sizes of stilt houses, each one with at least one cow, a few chickens and dogs. A lot of the locals were fishing by the side of the road in the rivers and streams leading to the lake. Once we got to the lake we booked our ticket and got a whole boat to ourselves. The floating town was about 10km into the lake and it was a beautiful ride watching the fishermen fish and stalk like birds flying above. The floating village itself was brilliant. These houses are all on stilts with steps leading down to the water. There was a real buzzing community of family's fishing, children jumping and swimming in the water and others chilling out in there hammocks. Everyone was smiling and the children all stopped to wave and give us big grins. There was hardly any other boats like ours there with other tourists. We stopped at a jetty type place to get on another smaller boat. This boat was so small that we had to sit three or two of us on each, all cross legged in the middle to keep it balanced. Ours was rowed by a lovely lady and she took us into the 'flooded forest' which is a giant mangrove forest. It was really magical. We saw a snake slide of a tree and into the water which was pretty cool (happy it was into the water and not our boat!). Our longtail engined boat then took us out to the Ton Le Sap lake where we could see for miles and miles with no land on the horizon, it was like being at sea! On the way back we were met by children rowing in wooden canoe style boats from school, all neatly in there uniforms. Everything was just so normal to them, I found it strange and was envious imagining how I would live in a lake with houses and schools on stilts and swimming or boating to my mates house round the corner! The whole trip was a really wonderful experience and it was amazing to see such a different way of life.
That evening we had a nice local meal the Amok curry (cambodian coconut based curry) was definitely a highlight! We then had a good chill at Hak's before catching the night bus to Phnom Penh.