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Siem Reap
We arrived late afternoon at Seim Reap port. As soon as the boat docked 15-20 men jumped on shouting 'tuc tuc $1 tuc tuc $1'. We were lucky, our hotel in Battambang had already arranged a tuc tuc to pick us up so we bee lined for him. He wanted to take us to a hotel of his choice but we had decided on Tenei Hotel. We arrived at Tenei hotel but there was a lot of building work going on so we checked in next door at Ancient Angkor Hotel. After checking in we walked around some other hotels to check out pools and prices. We decided that our original choice was the best and would move tomorrow. We had lunch/dinner at Jim's place near Pub Street. I was hungry in the evening so got some bread and butter. I went to take a bite and saw loads of dead ants in the bread, glad we were moving the next day! The next day we changed hotels and then met our tuc tuc driver for the first day of out Angkor Tour. We had arranged to pay $60 for three days of sight seeing. We went to Kbul spean first which is a carved river bed, know as 'river of a thousand lingas' in the middle of the jungle. It took 30 minutes to walk to the river and on the way back Gareth stubbed his big right toe. We then went to Banteay Srei which is the 'Citadel of Women' dedicated to Shiva. It has the most intricate carvings and detail around each door way, wall and lintel. While we were here Gareth stubbed his big left toe! We then got dropped off on Pub Street and had dinner at temple. The second day in Siem Reap was spent relaxing around the pool before getting ready to go to Pub Street again. We ate at Viva, a Mexican and then met Claire in Temple for cocktails. The third day was a long day. We did the large temple circuit. We were picked up at 8am and headed straight for Angkor Wat. It was impressive but not our favourite. We then went on to Angkor Thom. When our driver dropped us back off at the hotel he asked us to pay some money, which was fine, but then he said the price had gone up. He wanted us to pay $15 for the small route and then an extra $18 dollars for the large route plus $30 for the far away temples and then another $12 dollars for the rubles the next day!! This adds to $78 not the original $60 we had agreed. He was trying to make out you have to pay for the short route when it is actually part of the big route so should be no extra cost. We were cross and decided just to give him $50 for the two days and send him on his way. Our final day in Siem Reap was spent relaxing around the pool before going to eat on Pub Street one last time. We got picked up from our hotel the following morning and taken to the big bus which drove us to Kampon Cham, we then had to wait three hours for our connecting bus that took us to Kratie.
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