Mysteres D'Angkor Lodge & Restaurant Siem Reap

This was Day 2 of temple visiting. Another full day in the air conditioned minivan ($55) seeing 5 temples:

1) Banteay Srei – built in 967, cut from pinkish colored stone, has some of the finest stone carving seen anywhere on the planet, amazing how much of it is preserved.

2) Kbal Spean- carvings in a riverbed deep in the jungle. Carved in ...

... I think, than the other temples. We were impressed by Angkor Wat of course, but there were crowds and tour groups traipsing through, so we didn't like its "atmosphere" as much.

Jacob’s journal:

Yesterday we went to a bunch of temples in the Siem Reap area. I thought that they were all very cool in their own way. The first had a lot of rubble, and it was fun to run around like crazy ...

... to make fun of her friend, imitating her voice and making sarcastic comments. She giggled at her friend's dogmatic persistence, unfailing despite us declining the unwanted wares about ten million times. We actually had a nice chat with her about her life, and her schoolwork, the conversation still occasionally interrupted by her friend's intrusive mantra.

After the meal we made our way to the Terrace of the Elephants, which extends for three hundred metres north from the ...

... were viewing the proceedings. It was good fun watching the pairs of boats storming down the river – 391 entered in total - each clad in team colours and with 50 – 80 oarsmen striking the water with varying degrees of coordination. The oars of the winner’s boat would be raised in the air with load cheers as they crossed the finish line – though often in closely run races both sets would go up, each claiming the ...

Arrived in Cambodia via flt. from Bangkok. Found a lovely little guest house after hopping in a remork (Tuk-Tuk) from the airport. Mr. Chok our driver was very helpful and pleasant though he unintentionally drove us to the wrong hotel. There are apparently two Shadow of Angkor Guest houses, both are centrally located and easy walking distance to the night market. The original ...

... largest lake in SE Asia. The humidity was quite intense for those of us accustomed to the Bay Area mild climate. After a 15 minute ride we were greeted like royalty at the hotel. The first gesture was one that we came to really like…..a cold towel with a mint aroma to cool off. We were offered this at virtually every restaurant, hotel, and flight and we did not turn it down once! We were escorted to our room, which we later found was also the ...

... i didn't want to, they just put in on you and then ask for a dollar.

after that, managed to get another drink, then got shown the crocodiles that the restaurant had, keeping them in a little covered cage, half under water and the other part so that they could bathe in the sun.

Really good morning.

leaving for a beach resort today, hopefully should get there later today.

Heya

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 ...

... Sunday and full day with a tuk-tuk yesterday.
And I loved every minute of it, in spite of the scorching sun, the heat, the big distances, etc.
This is definitely a site one should not deal with lightly!

Some history first...
The Khmer have balanced a long time between 2 religions, both imported from India: hinduism and buddhism, which explains why most monuments are dedicated to the numerous hindu gods and goddesses while still being used nowadays ...

... I did not pay pretty much attention to the details but one thing that I'm very sure of is that Cambodian hates Thais VERY VERY MUCH ...