Soo-a s'day! (that's hello in Khmer, the Cambodian language don't you know)

Wow, what a day we have had! Today we went to the temples of Angkor which is one of the wonders of the world. It is the reason that we decided to come to Cambodia and we are so pleased that we did - it was totally worth the crazy journey here yesterday which is now long forgotten!

We were picked up by our tuk tuk driver (who's name was Paulie!) at 8am. The tuk tuk's here are different to Thailand and the double ones are more like a trailer strapped on to a motorbike and is actually called a remorque-moto. We prefer 'tuk tuk'. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the temples which was an interesting ride in itself. A lot of the roads are still dirt tracks and it was quite an exciting bumpy ride with so much to see. Just watching the people going about their daily lives is interesting to observe and many times a family of 5 will speed pass us on a motorbike and we kick ourselves for not being able to get the camera out fast enough to capture it! We had to pay a $20 entrance fee to the temples each which was worth it as the whole place is like a city and spread out miles around.

Quick history lesson, (had to rip this from the Lonely Planet so can't take credit for all of it) the temples were built between the 9th and 13th centuries and Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious building. Back in those days the Cambodian empire included Burma, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. There were a million inhabitants within the city of Angkor and only 50,000 inhabitants in London at the time. All the houses and palaces were made from wood (because only the gods were allowed to live inh structures of brick and stone) which are now long gone. For nearly 500 years the city became the 'lost' city of Angkor until it was discovered by the French in the 1800's. The temples have only really been visited by tourists over the past 15 years, and even more since the Tomb Raider movies were released as one of them was actually filmed in one of the temples, which we visited.

So that brings you slightly up to speed (and it's all we know anyway). We started off with the mother of all temples: Angkor Wat itself. As we approached the temple we could see its towers rising up through the jungle. It takes your breath away. This temple is surrounded by a huge moat (which they used to fill with crocodiles to stop enemies from getting in) which took us about 10 minutes to cross and loomed in front of us as we walked nearer. The king at the time had Angkor Wat built for him mostly for his burial place - the temple is the only temple that faces west which is the direction of 'death''. All the others are east which is the direction of 'life'. Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple but the rest of the temples of Angkor are Buddhist temples (later made in to Hindu temples) and there are loads of religious carvings over the walls and little details most of which we are sure we missed as it is just so huge and so much to take in. We wandered around for over an hour exploring all the little corridors and walkways and said a Buddhist prayer with incense for our families. It was very calm and serene there like many of the other temples we have visited and we really loved doing it at our own pace. There weren't too many other people there either and the weather this morning was quite mild so all in all it wasn't as hot and stressful as we imagined it would be.

After seeing Angkor Wat (we really should have saved that til last as it was so immense and nothing else really looked as good afterwards) we met up with Paulie who took us to the next temple. We were surrounded by small children trying to sell us cold water, bracelets, flutes (?!) and postcards. We had been warned about this, as they also have a habit of picking your pocket too, and had to ignore them and walk through even though it broke our hearts. As with all of these big sites, it was full of ice cream vans, food stalls, restaurants and clothes shops after clothes shops (Not sure who would actually come to Angkor to buy clothes? Surely the temples are the attraction?) which is disappointing but not surprising. We were most surprised not to find a McDonalds or a Starbucks there!

The next set of temples were 'Angkor Thom'which is actually a huge area surrounded by a 6m wall and containing 10 temples. The first we saw was 'Bayon' (you will see in the photos) which is ful of 216 faces carved in to the stone which apparently were meant to be the faces of the king at the time watching over his subjects. Eerie. There are also many carvings in the stone around this temple which were interesting to see and although it wasn't as huge as Angkor Wat it was still a pretty impressive temple. Then we went on to 'Baphuon' temple next door which is like a jigsaw puzzle as it was taken apart many years ago by archaeologists and all records were destroyed during the war so no one knew how to put it back again! They are still trying to restore it its original glory. We then wandered along to the 'Terrace of the Elephants' which is exactly what it sounds like and there are loads of elephants carved in to the sides of the walls and other animals.

Phew... that was enough for us as at this point it was getting hotter and hotter so we stopped for a quick Diet Coke and were descended on by children trying to sell bracelets. One little girl really impressed Matt by asking him where he was from, telling him London is the capital of England, our population and other random stats like rainfall and the prime minester! Then he thought he'd test her by shooting out different countries and without missing a beat she could tell us the capital city. Well, except for Wales but we let her off! We were so impressed that we gave her $1 and bought 3 of her bracelets! As Matt says, she earned that dollar just by being brighter than any other 7 year old kid we have ever met! (other than Matt's cousins of course!)

We then got back in to our tuk tuk (Paulie had been having a sleep so we had to wake him up) and went to our final temple of the day - 'Ta Prohm' which is the set for both Tomb Raider and Two Brothers (the film about the tigers that we watched with my Mum before we left for our trip!). This one was pretty impressive as well and is the only temple in all of Angkor which has been left alone. Only the trees were taken away as when it was discovered it was covered in jungle, however they have left 30% of the trees to give you an idea of what it was like when it was discovered and also, the trees are so amazing that it would be a crime to get rid of them. We wandered in to this temple without really knowing anything about it and were pleased when a local guy approached us (his name was Moot) and offered his services as a tour guide of the temple for only $7 - bargain! It made such a difference walking around with someone that knows all the history and could point out little details that we never would have noticed unless we had been with him. This temple was originally constructed as a Buddhist temple by the king and many years later, was turned in to a Hindu temple and all of the Buddah faces were defaced. Harsh! It was made for the king's mother and was also a temple for fertility where men and women could pray and drink holy water to enhance fertility. As the temple has pretty much been left since it was discovered, it's quite a mess with tree roots coming through the stone and literally suffocating the buildings. They make great photo opportunities! Our guide told us so much about the temple (we won't bore you with all the details!) including it taking 80,000 people to make and maintain the temple which was constructed over 5 years. Quite a few of the carvings in the walls weren't even finished as the king died before the temple was completed. There was also holes in many of the walls where precious gems had been put inside to make the temple even more beautiful but unfortunately these, as well as many of the other relics, were stolen by tomb raiders over the years.

The last temple really blew our mind and we took some really nice photos (hope you enjoy them and there aren't too many there!). After seeing Ta Prohm we were exhausted, and the sun had got really hot, so we asked Paulie to drive us back to our guesthouse where a nice cold shower was waiting for us. We got absolutely filthy walking around in the dust and dirt all day and our feet were black by the end of our little adventure - a sign of a good day out we think. People spend days wandering around the temples, and whilst we appreciate that you probably do need a long time to do it properly, we aren't really 'temple' people and were just really happy to have seen the main temples and appreciate them for what they are rather than getting too templed-out and not enjoying it anymore.

When we got back to Siem Reap we headed in to town and had a fruit shake and just chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. We are leaving for Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia on a 9.30am tomorrow where we are going to spend three days in the gym (not joking) whilst we wait for our Vietnam visa to be prepared. Then we will take a bus over the boarder and go straight to Ho Chi Min city (Saigon) and start our tour of Vietnam.

Hope you are all okay and we didn't temple you out too much with the blog! Sure we've forgotten something as we saw and learned so much today. but think you'll get the jist of it from this blog! All our love, Lara Croft and Indiana Jones xxxx