Villa Kiara Hotel Siem Reap

... there are children trying to cell things. I understand that people are poor, and I respect their attempts to try and make a living. Except that more often than not, I feel like someone in the background is pimping these children out to get money, so I hesitate to buy from them. I don't want to give them money either though, as I am afraid that will create a cycle of begging. They are quite precocious though. They can speak several ...

... as that was when all the tourists arrived. There were hundreds of them, mostly Chinese and Japanese tour groups of about 50 people with camera the size of my arm hustling and bustling around, barging in front of you to get the best shot. We had a well comical moment which summed it all up. I (Lindsay) was standing still for a few minutes having bargained with to buy a book about the Angkor temples. Unbeknown to me, an Asian lady who was part of a ...

... and in recent times to bring it back to near perfect exactness.
While walking in and out and climbing the narrow depth stairs that were
often nearly a straight up climb in many cases it made me think that if one suffers from vertigo climbing these stairs would not be for you. I didn't have any trouble going up but coming down was whole different situation.
It nearly takes your breath away to see the architectural magnificence of Angkor Wat.

... riesige Gesichter zieren. Weiters besichtigten wir den nicht vollstaendig vom Dschungel befreiten Ta Prohm Tempel. Dieser Tempel sieht mit den zahlreichen Baumwurzeln wie aus einem Indiana Jones Film aus. Nachdem wir die alte Hauptstadt des Khmer Reiches besichtigten ging es weiter nach Phnom Penh die aktuelle Hauptstadt Kambodschas.

... to get some tests. The clinic took blood tests and confirmed I had contracted Dengue Fever. Luckily I had one of the milder strains, but it was still pretty horrible. Within a few days the dengue rash came out and I was covered in itchy red blotches. My hands and feet swelled up and itched like mad - I looked like I was a puffy marshmallow!

I'd originally started to make plans to visit the beach area in Cambodia, Sihanoukville, and then travel to Ko Chang in ...

... The thing that strikes you the most are the number of children begging for food and money at the checkpoint. They plead with their hands in prayer which is pretty shocking in its own way especially when a number of the children have missing limbs. The kids try and sweet talk you as you walk from place to place. If you say you have no money they would riposte quick as a flash with " No money, no honey ...

... temple given the atmospheric look the ruins had. It’s hard to believe this place is real, what with the octopus like tree tendrils crawling over the ancient temples. Also, Andrea was pretty excited to learn that several scenes from Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie were filmed here. Please note that Andrea insisted on cheesy Tomb Raider poses for our temple pictures much to my dismay.

Our temple guide for the day, Mean ...

... bit ugly. An argument starts in rapid Khemer. Me and IG keep saying 'We go?, 'We go?'. So (according to Aly, I didnt see this) one guy gets physical and slaps another driver and the police come over. IG walks over straight away and shakes hand. Clever bloke. So thing eventally calm down and driver gets in and we're off. IG starts to explain, they're arguing because there are 3 people to pay...the driver. the people we didnt go with and to bribe the police).

First ...

... a battle. At the top there are guardian dvarapalas and devatas. The lintels are considered to be some of the finest Khmer art. The sun was starting to go down and I think we were able to get some neat pictures.

Preah Ko was the first temple built. It has 6 brick towers that are not symmetrical. Bill was excited when Som told us that there was a ""secret cow here. Actually he said "sacred cow, so Bill was
disappointed that we did not have to hunt for ...

... every inch of ground. The smell of sewer, rotting trash and sulpher filled the air.

Let's get out of here!

We hit the road to find that we really weren't prepared for how bad the roads were. As I said, the difficulty of this particular journey is well documented and known among travellers, but...WOW. The road was "paved" for perhaps another few hours, but in reality this meant little. It may have been paved in 1980 and not given a single minute of maintenance ...