Saturday was spent visiting the Angkor temples, most peoples sole reason for visiting Cambodia. After breakfast which consisted of coffee and a cinnamon roll, we met Randy from the previous day who took us on the 6km drive to Angkor in his tuk tuk. We decided we'd get the three day pass at $40 so that we could return another day to view the sunrise.
Our first stop was the Bayon temple with its many faces, staring down at you as you walked round the ruins. Although I had heard about Angkor Wat, I knew little more about it and was definitely surprised by the sheer size and scale of the place. After clambering over the ruins for over an hour we walked to the next stop which included the Royal Palace and the rest of Angkor Thom.
Lunch was taken in an overly priced restaurant before heading to Ta Prohm (also known as the tomb raider temple due to the fact that Angelina Jolie filmed Tomb raider here). Ta Prohm is special because of all the ancient trees that have gone amongst the foundations. Pretty impressive stuff. Although we did all get a bit annoyed by the sheer volume of tourists (mostly Chinese and Japanese) wanting to take various photos in different poses of themselves next to the different trees. I did succeed in getting a photo with no one in it but it took a lot of patience.
Angkor Wat was our final stop of the day and again very busy with tourists. Maybe it was because it was the last stop of the day and we were tired or the fact that it was so busy, or that we had built it up so much in our minds, but we were not overly impressed initially. We climbed to the top up some very steep steps, which showed amazing views of the area. Again, however, it was overly crowded with tourists.
After Angkor Wat we headed back into Siem Reap, where we showered and headed to the bar for happy hour. We'd decided we wanted to catch the rugby so headed to pub street in the hope of finding a bar or restaurant that would have it on. We were in luck as most of the food places had Tv's but unfortunately they were playing English football. Not what we wanted! Luckily we found a place that happily let us change the channel and we were able to watch the All Blacks beat the Springboks. We also discovered fish amok for the first time, our new favourite Khmer dish.
We spotted a guy sitting alone on a table across from us, took pity on him and invited him to come and join us as we enjoyed the 50cent beers. His friends turned up a little later and I think that's where the night took a turn for the worse! We should have gone home after the bill came which showed we'd consumed 28 beers and 3 cocktails but instead we followed the guys to Temple club across the road, where we met an Irish girl who was a bad influence, continued to drink & dance and didn't leave until gone 4am!!