Empress Angkor Siem Reap

... whose name we didn’t know. Our guide said the name a couple times but we all seemed to hear something different when we talked later. The sunset was nice except once I climbed these nearly straight up stairs I realized I would have to climb down them, in the dark. The thought of this got me more than a little anxious so…I decided to take as many as possible from this great vantage point and as the sun set I started the climb down before ...

... symbolic of Angkor wat became more and more promienent as we reached the entrance, I held my breath as I entered this historical place. The inside of the wat was filled with high ceiling corridors and a main opening where there were several staircases leading up tot the wat (unfortunately off limits to the public). Surrounding the Angkor wat was beautiful wild forestation, giving the place a more authentic and poignant feel. Steven and me seemed to have picked a ...

The temples of Angkor close to Siem Reap were amazing, as promised. Ruins of cities with impressively large and detailed stone statues of deities and animals stand out in the open, peak out of the forest or lay toppled everywhere. <br><br>In Bayon, the massive carved faces of what is believed to be representation of the face of the ruler at the time, merged with the face of Buddha look high above and ...

... here it was a town fairly focussed on one main road through the middle. A nice place, but clearly spread out now. Angkor being the main attraction there are literally hundreds of places to stay. From $5 a night to $1000 a night (ours is $6 and really good). If you need cheap, clean, quality accommodation please visit Golden Takeo. They have a website and a great owner to boot!<br><br>We had said we'd return here, but we'd said that ...

... head to foot several times. I'm clean now, and the cuts are dressed with antibiotic ointment, so I'll be fine. I can't help but notice some residual scent of pig dung. Later the next day, after 3 showers, the smell remains. Will I ever get rid of it?<br><br>The one thing I can say after this experience is that I will never take my rice for granted, ever again. I will not leave one precious kernel on my plate uneaten. To see ...

Heya<br><br>We decide that we'd had enough of Thailand and decided to make a run for the boarder to Cambodia. Now we'd heard some pretty bad horror stories about getting across the boarder like buses that went deliberately slow so you had to stay a night in a hotel on the boarder town that gave the driver kickbacks. Smiling Cambodians which offered to go sort your visa for you but charging triple the price, taxis ...

... it wll be time to head to Laos.<br><br>Leah sen heuy!<br><br><br>Et en francais, maintenant:<br><br>Tout recommence ... pour vous, pas pour moi ! <br> <br>L'école,<br>université, le travail, la salle de gym, les cours de musique,<br>l'académie de peinture ... tout recommence et pour quelques semains,<br>vous serez bien occupés... surtout les parents,parmi vous ! J'espère<br>que vous avez tous passé un été merveilleux et vous souhaite à tous<br>bonne chance ...

... think he wanted his photo taken. I hasn't affected me though, apart from a nasty little rash under my . . .<br><br><br>They won't let you climb up to the top of the temple, so it was difficult to get an overall view of the temple &#8211; you get a better impression from the model that we saw in Phnom Penh.<br><br> As we left I got a shot of the temple reflected in the lake, one of the most popular postcard shots.<br><br ...

... pens and paper in the shop they took us to, and we ended up wishing that we'd skipped the trip altogether and given $30 directly to the school. The boat driver, having regaled us with tales of his tough upbringing, took us to a fish farm where we saw crocodiles, turtles and catfish, and held a large python. We politely declined the offer of buying some snake to eat though, for ethical reasons ...

A declared lay day after a few early and long days. After breakfast we took tuc-tucs to the masseurs -- blind Cambodians. Nice, but a bit too gentle. Then a tuc-tuc back into the central market to do some shopping. Interesting that not much took our fancy, though Mandy bought a lovely elephant bracelet. Lunch at a cafe, then we walked up to the tourist market. Several hundred stalls all selling the same 10 t-shirts ...