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The 19th and 20th of March staged a worldwind tour of Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor - thanks to a limited amount of sleep and taxi driver extraordinaire Mr. Meth and his need for speed!
We arrived in Siem Reap after a 6 hour stint sat on top of a 'fast' boat which took us up the Tonle Sap River from Phnom Penh. This was a very beautiful journey and we saw lots of floating villages and farmers in their rice fields. Although the blistering heat eventually forced us below deck after about 5 hours. Hot bob indeed.
We got to the 'port' (I use this term extremely loosely as it was infact no more than a muddy bank) and 20 tuk tuk drivers descended on the boat and nearly capsized the bloomin thing. Fortunately - and I must say to my sheer and utter DELIGHT - there was a driver (Mr. Meth) waiting for us holding up a sign. This is what the sign read....
Welcome? Mr. Colton and Ms. Simon.
Mwah ha haaa (evil laugh). So, courtesy of Mr. Meth me and Ms. Simon sped to the Ancient City of Angkor for the sunset. We perched ourselves on the top of a hill at Phnom Bakheng (one of the many temples) and awaited for the sun to go down, although the clouds stole it from us , so we went for a Cambodian Curry at the Red Piano instead - frequented by Angelina Jolie no less.
A clouds heralded a thunderstorm in the night, which also stole the sunrise from us, but we nevertheless had a great day exploring Angkor in the drizzle. Angkor Wat is indeed truly magnificent. And the greatest thing happened there - I asked a Chinese tourist to take our picture in front of the Temple but he got confused and instead took a fabulous close up of his own beautiful face - please look at the picture it is brilliant (I've saved it on the camera and look at it every day! ). We climbed up the middle of the temple too which is VERY steep and scary - I bought some incence and prayed to Buddha at the top that Simon 'mind the step' Colton and I would make it back down safely. We did - hoorah.
We also went to see The Bayon which is a temple with 216 smiling faces carved in its walls, and Ta Prohm, the only temple which has been 'left to the jungle' and is like being in the Jungle Book! There are big piles of rocks and hugemongous tree roots. Some of Tomb Raider was filmed here too, Cambodia is so very Hollywood. I bought a bracelet from a little girl here (because she was following me round and I stood on her toe - oh dear!)
It was sadly time for the bus back to the capital at 1 (we only just made it too - thank you very big like a mountain Mr. Meth) although this was an adventure in itself. An old man at the back came down the bus and grabbed Simon's arm and started laughing manically! And then at the pit stop the 2 men sat opposite us bought a big bag of spiders (!) and started monching away - they kindly offered us one but we declined. They were the size of tarantulas.
Crazy Cambodia!
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