Terrace of the Leper King Siem Reap

Unlike most of you on Boxing Day who were sat in front of the tele, eating left over turkey and playing with your presents - as it should be. We were sat on a bus worrying that Brad was going to be deported from Cambodia.

On Boxing Day we started our journey to Cambodia - our final destination. On the bus Brad was asked if he had another …

Where shall I start...??? Cambodia is just amazing!

It starts with the people, after all what happened in the history of this country, they keep on smiling and think positive. Everything happens with a smile and nothing seems to be pushy, at least that is my experience. The level of English is also very good comparing to the neighbour …

I organised a bus with a travel agent to take me from my hotel to Siem Reap. I'd heard the border was fairly dodgy so I did a bit of reading up about it first so I'd know what to expect. The bus picked me up at 7am but it was practically empty so I managed to lie down and sleep the first 4 hours to the border. The bus, which i had presumed …

02 Dec.
Arrived in Cambodia we were flooded with greetings, smiles and very helpful people. But also with hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers wanting to bring us somewhere else. Super annoying after one day.

After checking out the old town we headed to the nearby lake Tonlé Sap for a beautiful sunset view. On the way down to the lake …

Was also going to call this one "Don't Fear the Siem Reaper"

Flew from Saigon to Siem Reap. After a fairly easy breeze through customs and another full page in my passport taken up with a visa (I only have 4 pages left now) a nice boy from our guesthouse picked us up from the airport and shuttled us in his tuk tuk (or Remorque-moto as …

Siem Reap was our city of choice when it came to celebrating the New Year and it proved to be a outstanding decision. Not only does it have authentic Khmer culture and ancient history with the temples of Angkor it also has a thriving city with a plethora of markets, restaurants, bars and incredibly friendly locals.

We ended up spending …

Siem Reap isn't what I was expecting. It has a very European feel to it, nothing like I've experienced in Cambodia, but I wasn't to be too chilled as you get hounded the most I have in Asia for a Tuk Tuk! Half a toe length out of your hostel and you're asked "Lady, you want Tuk Tuk?" Even as you enter Pub Street, an aptly named street where you get …

So we took a night bus from Sihanoukville to Siem Riep. It has to be one of the worst journeys we have been on yet - mainly due to the fact that the road was very badly maintained and our driver wanted to get there as quickly as possible. At one stage we hit a pot hole so fast that both of us thought the bus was going to tip over. We were also held …

Angkor Wat

I only had one shot to get a good sunset at Angkor Wat, so I needed to get there early to find a good spot.

The hotel was kind enough to prepare boxed breakfast this morning. I was up at 4:30am and out the door by 5am. My poor driver is already waiting for me. It would be a long day for him!

On the road to …

Nach der anstrengenden Fahrt nach Kambodscha haben wir uns auf unser Hostel gefreut und wurden nicht enttaeuscht! Das Good Kind Guesthouse wird von einem franzoesisch/kambodschanischen Paar gefuhert und ist erst seit ein paar Monaten geoeffnet. Hier haben wir (besonders ich wegen der franzoesischen Sprache) uns wie daheim gefuehlt. Unser Zimmer war …

... populated. Next, we set off for Angkor Thom which consisted of Bayon, the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King. Bayon was spectacular, it was a large temple-like structure topped with massive granite strucures of faces of ...

... Angkor Thom. It's really hard to imagine what they would have looked like new. I wanted to specially go to the Terrace of the Leper King. I wanted to see if there were any lepery-type things there. But there's nothing much left anymore. Just like ...

... pictures taken.  Angkor Thom is also quite impressive with its reliefs of the Terrace of the Elephants and the" Terrace of the Leper King".  We can still see elephants at work around this temple.   Siem Reap itself is a cute town ...

... treated to an endless variety of angles and compositions of the 216 heads carved into the stone. A photographers dream. Terrace of the Leper King - Elephants (1190-1210)  Not a whole lot is known about this temple.  I couldn't really ...

... my way back to the plastic chair restaurants near the Bayon, and it sounded like a good plan. First stop was The Terrace of the Leper King. A huge wall here was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of finely carved apsaras. A small entrance also led ...

... blocks. We walked from here to Phimeanakas and the Preah Palilay and then we went to see the almost perfect carvings of The Terrace of the Leper King and the magnificent 350m long wall of The Terrace of Elephants which was fully carved of lions and ...

... a while exploring were the terraces.  The first terrace you see is the Elephant Terrace, so why everyone mentions the Terrace of the Leper King first I have no idea.  The Elephant Terrace is covered in super awesome elephants.  The ones at ...

... . Beside it are the Royal Baths. The water is very septic looking Royal Palace Not much left. Just a couple of terraces Terrace Of The Leper King A little zigzag type passage of bas reliefs. There is meant to be a picture of a Leper King, ...

... but it started to pour rain just as we started to look at the famous Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King (!?!?), a platform area where kings and their entourages would watch processions stream by on the road below. We waited it ...

... of seeing really incredible temples. First on the agenda was to actually see the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King (?!?), which we missed the previous day due to rain and then scampering off to see Angkor Wat. Yup, there are ...