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BEST DAY EVER!!!
4:15am we wake up our friend in the hostel to commence our race with the rising sun! We had to get to the temple by sunrise to get the awesome view. Some female members of the group (no names) were not as fast cycling as the others and may have struggled to keep up a little - understandable given her petite frame and unathletic ability. About 1km from the temple with 5 minutes to go, Chris breaks down for the first time. Locking the bike to a random tree on the side of the road, Nic and Josh take it in turns to run the rest of the way while bike b**** Chris stole their bikes (in fairness he's broken his ankle or something lame). Bursting into angkor wat, sweating buckets and SO HOT (at 5am!!!) with Miranda still somewhere near the hostel we secured the best view of the temple and got to watch as the first rays of light pierced the ominous clouds, shedding glorious light on the once intimidating yet formidable darkness that stood before, causing us to reflect on the insignifant and fleeting presence of man when compared with the impenetrable and almost oppressive, all-encompassing force of nature (we watched the sun rise. It was nice.)
Since we were already there, we looked around Angkor wat (the biggest and most famous temple). Trust us to then follow a path covered in spiders into the jungle and find an abandoned temple, pre and pass out. Only kidding. We checked out the abandoned temple and then thought it was a great idea to walk back along the 1.5km moat. What a fun mosquito ridden trek that was.
After the days before where we barely saw sunlight, it was quite a shock to discover we'd been awake for 4 hours and the sun was still shining. We ate lunch at 8am in a delightful yet thoroughly disgusting (how is this possible?! Because were being polite. It was a s*** hole) restaurant.
After following Josh's directions (which aren't that bad but the rest of the group are totally unappreciative b****es) we (out of complete chance and due to a useless and inaccurate map NOT NAVIGATOR) we arrived at the wrong temple. Embarrassed by his mistake Josh pretended this is where we wanted to be and hurried past the entrance sign and when one of the group asked for the map he pretended he Had lost it. Anyway it was an awesome temple! We made friends with some Cambodian children who showed us a secret hiding place on the roof of one of the temples - it was amazing!
On our way to the next temple we met some monkeys!!! THEY WERE AWESOME! we fed them so many bananas that we bought from an old lady. While we distracted her the monkeys stole pineapples from her cart. THEN one tried to kill Chris (the only one without a rabies jab) and literally all of the monkeys went CRAZY! We actually dropped the bananas and RAN FOR OUR LIVES, screaming monkeys in hot pursuit. Miranda, still not far from the hostel was safe. Kidding.
Arriving at the next temple where some of tomb raider was filmed, our coxiks were already bruised and we were literally dying of heat exhaustion. Chris had also broken down another 4 times in this journey. in the temple, Miranda created an alter-ego for the amusement of the group. She pretended to be a very stuck up, ignorant traveller - our favourite quote after 17 children tried to sell her a flute was "I blame the parents". Unfortunately for one member of the group (we won't tell you who) diarreah struck. The person dropped their bags and ran to the toilet in a world record time. A lake separated them from the toilet but this was no hurdle. They swam across in individual medley style to reach their destination in a time reminiscent of the world biathle champion 2010 from Dubai. Who had diarrhoea you may question? Still not telling!
Completely exhausted we decided to head back to the hostel. This was SO unsuccessful. How many f***ing temples do the Cambodians want to build?! Despite almost passing out from hunger, heat and fatigue we climbed the tallest temple (WHY?!) and visited two others (WHYY?!). During this time, chris had broken down another 6 times and swapped onto joshs bike whose pedal fell off before getting back on his, the chain falling off, getting off and throwing the bike at a tree in a wild fit of rage. Wed never seen this side of chris but we were scared. By this point we really were beyond shattered and genuinely found it hard to string coherent sentences together. We decided the only way back was to tie up the bikes and get a tuktuk home!
After a 2 hour nap we headed back (thank god - we hadn't seen enough temples for one dAy!) to collect our bikes and cycle home. Night fell by the time we arrived but we still wanted to check out one more temple...
It was past closing time but noone was around so we snuck into a temple with torches. Miranda got scared that a psychotic monk, a tribe of wild monkeys and the entire Cambodian police force were hiding in the temple ready to pounce and tried to persuade the boys to leave. She did this by repeatedly telling them she studied theology so knows what she's talking about...Even when we had left and got on our bikes she still thought a tourist on his mobile phone was calling in the SWAT team to take us out. Thank god, despite all odds we made it out alive.
Afte a gruelling hour long cycle ride home we arrived back in Siem reap in time for dinner. With very bruised botties but very high spirits we found dinner in a mall. The group was split for meal choice, Chris and Nic wanted one thing while Miranda and Josh had a craving for a pizza (true Cambodian trarvellers) Being the more polite members of the group, Miranda and Josh sat and watched Chris and Nic eat their meal under the promise that we could eat at the pizza place next door after. When they eventually finished, the pizza place had closed!!!! Not to worry, our creative minds came up with a plan b and we found a pizzeria one block down.
Set for an early night we were in our room by midnight. At 3am we were still playing charades to the amusement of our room buddy (he still hates us)!
Were still not sure what time zone were in but we had an awesome day!
Much love
X x x
Ps the answer to the question on the previous blog is around 32. HE WAS USELESS.
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