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The bus ride from Bangkok to siem reap was smoother than expected. We had heard horror stories about problems and delays caused at the customs office entering Cambodia. Many people we knew had to wait hours getting their visas processed and passports checked. Luckily our private bus was efficient and they had prompted us to get an evisa in advance. The easy entry into Cambodia did not ditract from how uncomfortable we felt walking through 'no mans land' (the section of land between Thailand and Cambodia.) As we made our way to the tourist office, people would ask us questions and get quite close, we were unsure of their intentions. In addition, there didn't seem like a sense of community, everything was based around the crossing and casinos offering betting which is illegal in Thailand. The bus company exceeded expectations again when they provided us with a free tuk tuk service to our hostel.
Funky flashpacker hostel had been recommended to us by so many travellers. It is exactly how you would imagine a party hostel to be. The hostel rooms centred around the pool with different levels overlooking it on balconies. The set up could indeed be described as 'funky' with cushions around the pool, inflatable deer, beach balls and a bar alongside the pool. It was easy to get chatting to people in the pool and we quickly met many of the staff and lots of other travellers. We had an early night on our first night in preparation for our 4am start the next day to see the temples at sunrise.
We forced ourselves up and out of bed, tuk tuks were lined up waiting outside the hostel. We hopped in one and followed a whole host of other tuk tuks going the same way, it was the main sight to see in siem reap. To add to the suspense of visiting the temples, it began to rain and we made our way through the empty streets of Siem reap in moonsoon rain. The temples were very impressive, each one with a slightly different style. The first one was called ankor wat which looked beautiful in the early morning light. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the full sun rise but it was special all the same. My favourite temple has faces carved into the stone on the side of the temple. Some faces looked content and quite calm while others looked quite disturbing. We had to wait for some of the temples to open, in the meantime we found a small Buddhist place of worship. A monk and elderly woman beckoned for us to approach. They gave us incense to hold while we sat in front of the Buddha and bowed back and forth. They asked for money as a donation but also blessed us with red bracelets.
The tuk tuk driver was lovely, he waited at each destination for us. On one occasion we came back and found him aslee with his hammock set up in his tuk tuk. We found some market stalls offering trousers, tops and souvenirs. We bought a couple of things but also got bombarded with young girls trying to offer us magnets.
That evening it was 'gender bender' night at the hostel and we thought we may aswell make an effort to participate in the theme. We swapped some clothes with a couple of the guys we had met. We looked quite a spectacle with caps on backwards and beards drawn on with eye liner. Not many people other than the staff had made such an effort. But later on we changed back to normal clothes and went to pub street. It was a street of bars blaring out music. Some were like proper clubs so we had a proper dance. It was nice to see a good mix of western and locals compared to some of the places we had been out in Thailand.
We took advantage of the chilled hostel atmosphere and spent the next day just chilling by the pool. While many of the girls enjoyed lounging by the pool in the baking sun, Lexi and I made full use of the basketballs and played some volley ball, we aren't ones for sitting still for too long. We heard about a gym nearby so that afternoon we got our sports kit on started running to the gym. Just as we left the hostel, the heavens opened. It poured down with rain making navigation quite difficult. It was quite refreshing but also very surreal running the streets in monsoon rain. We arrived at the gym drenched and we were handed a towel as we walked in and paid the $1 fee for access. The gym was basically a warehouse full of machines and matts. It was so nice to be back in a gym and it was a hard session as we hadn't done nearly as much exercise as we were used to.
That evening we went with some friends we had made from the hostel to find somewhere else for dinner. So far we had relied solely on the hostel food which was very good but relatively expensive. We enjoyed some local Cambodian cuisine which is quite similar to Thai food. Two more people joined us half way through the meal who we hadn't met before. One was a young Australian boy who was training to be an airforce pilot. An interesting thing about travelling is learning about the different ways people get trained or study in different fields. After dinner we went to the night market which was made up of a number of stalls offering very similar garments to what we had already seen. What was different was a lady boy show in full flow being performed right in the middle of the market.
The next day we had to check out early but hang around the pool waiting for our night bus. We met a couple of English boys who had just arrived and we passed on all our wisdom about siem reap and the best places to go. We also went with them for lunch back to the restaurant we had been to the night before. Again we were reminded how small the world is as they had a couple of mutual friends with us.
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