Angkor Sunrise Day.
We got up at five to leave at half five with our tuktuk driver who just so happened to be the fastest tuktuk driver in the East! He'd also promised that today would be more fun than before, with lots of different places to see. We hoped he was right, after a while, all grey stone ruins start to look the same...
Rushing about, we stumbled into the tuktuk about 5:35am and started the drive, at about 45miles an hour to try and catch the sunrise. And who can really say they've lived until they've put eyeliner and mascara on in the back of a wildly careering tuktuk at 5.35am on the way to watch one of the most beautiful sites nature can afford?
We arrived with moments to spare (or so we thought) and strolled over to Angkor Wat, took a few photos of the pretty pink sky and headed for the hill we wanted to get a vantage point from. As we walked away, tuktuk drivers began to gesture to us frantically, and we, in our by now jaded traveller frame of mind waved them off with a "no thankyou, no water or books today". More wild gesturing and we turned round to see they had been trying to alert us to the most blindingly beautiful sun, a perfect scarlet circle in the sky. Abashed, we thanked them, took a few photos and legged it to the hill (Phnom Bakheng), hoping we could make the climb before the sun was high in the sky. During the day, you can take an elephant to the top, but not at this early time. Just our poor knackered legs and empty stomachs. After a trek uphill culminating in a set of disgracefully steep steps (made only for gods or those with truly tiny feet) we finally made it, panting and a little sweaty. Few things are more rewarding. Again, hopefully the photos will speak for themselves. We spent an hour at least at the summit, taking photos, and enjoying the scenery and relative coolness. We had a breakfast of apples and lychees (bought from a local fruit market the night before) and headed back down to meet our tuktuk driver who was taking us to Ta Prohm, the set of the Tomb Raider film. Again, more amazing photographs of huge gnarly trees and slightly 'meh' grey ruins. After being tuktuk-ed around in a delicious breeze and our exercise for the week done, we headed home before most people were awake. Back at the hostel, we headed up to the roof for breakfast, or in erin's case, a huge burger. Burger was a bad choice, especially since my appetite was making only occasional appearances since the snake incident. It disappeared again as soon as I was presented with the burger.
We then went to our room, watched I Am Legend on our new favourite cable channel HBO, had a little nap, wrote up journals etc.

Sorry, just had to interrupt the blog writing to run outside the hostel and stand in our first rain since leaving home! Believe it or not, we missed it! As an extra little note, as we write this, there is a circle of about ten cambodians singing and playing the guitar, winning song so far: Hey Jude.

Anyway, where were we?
Yes, last day in Siem Reap. After I Am Legend, the tuktuk driver offered to take us to see the floating village. About 10-15km outside of Siem Reap through lots of little villages on stilts, we got to a ferry port and were informed by a little cambodian man that we should now cough up $20 each to get a boat to the floating village, a floating school and a floating fish market. He also took offence at our nervous laughter "why you laugh at me?!" No way were we paying that amount of money, a whole days budget in one go, especially considering the amount we'd paid for Angkor tickets, so we politely refused and asked our driver to take us home. The cambodoan man insisted that our tuktuk driver would lend us the money, a whopping $60 for a guy who was getting a mere $10 for a whole days work! He didnt seem to believe that we didnt carry that sort of money on us at all times, like walking western ATMs! Again, we refused, falling back on the excuse that it was not in our culture to borrow money from strangers and made our way back to the tuktuk. We got back into Siem Reap, back to the hostel and played cards and read books on the roof while listening to Bob Marley until Nic and Andy met us there to discuss the next day's six hour bus journey to Phnom Penh. We booked the same bus (8am) to travel together and realised we hadnt seen the Kiwi boys since bumping into them in the internet shop the day before. We still havent. Wherever you are boys, hope you're having fun! Statue bro!
Went to the internet shop, caught up and then packed up for the bus and headed to bed.