On my way down to Siem Reap one of the main questions I have been asking other travelers is how long do you really need to spend at Angkor Wat. According to the Lonely Planet one day is not enough but when tickets only come in 3 day passes (USD40) or 1 day (USD20) it is actually a big dilemma. Fortunately I met an English girl on the bus who also felt that a one day ticket is quite enough and we would just see as many temples as possible in one day and leave it at that.
Ok - just one of those travelers coincidences the girl (Emma) who I am know traveling with was on my flight out of Vientiane to Hanoi but we never spoke in the airport, traveled all through Vietnam along the same route and we were also in the same Typhoon party and never managed to meet until we traveled to Siem Reap!
So the temples...... they are amazing, Ankhor Wat itself is huge and you get to climb to the top of steep stairs and then give yourself vertigo climbing back down again (this country doesn't really do hand rails). We saw an amazing temple where there are hundreds of faces carved into the towers staring down at you and then there was our favourite temple where trees having taken over and there are these massive tree routes everywhere like snakes taking over. This temple was also in Tomb raider in case anyone saw it.
I stayed about 5 nights in Siem Reap and only went to the temples for one day - what else did we do. Well there was Bar Street where we danced away on the tables in the Angkor Wat bar, we needed massages to recover from our one temple day, we found a swimming pool to hang out at and plus we stayed in such a nice guest house (Smilies - wonderful place) where there was a shady courtyard just perfect for chilling.
We did try to leave Siem reap on the 22nd as we thought it might be a bad idea to rock up at an Island on Christmas eve but then the Blue pumpkin chocolate cake (I have not had just good chocolate cake in months) and another night in the Ankhor Wat bar persuaded us to stay one more night.
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