Angkor What?

  Siam Reap, Cambodia
Saturday, May 26, 2007

Instead of taking the bus from Bangkok we got the train to the Cambodian border.  Turned out there was only three backpackers on the train-(us two and a Belgian girl that ended up sharing the taxi to Battanbang), it was full of locals and schoolchildren, we even got assigned to help this lady take all her bags of flowers and shrubs off at one of the stops, passing all the bags out through the window before the train left again!

Who is this young Cambodian? Battanbang

Getting through the Thai-Cambodian border was tough work-first we had our tuk tuk driver stopping at a guest house with the owner telling us the border was closed to everyone but Thai people and that we could stay in his guest house and go the next morning.  We decided to take our chances and sure enough the border was open!  That was followed by this guy trying to get us to go in his taxi to Battanbang, which was dodgy as hell from the start, there was him and about eight other guys standing around this taxi trying to tell us we would have to pay up front and then they would bring us to Battanbang, 165km away....They weren't too happy when we realised it was a bad idea to go with them and took our rucksacks back out of the car and made our way to the nearest hotel. We were even told by a passing moto driver after that that we were being followed!  After that we ended up getting a taxi from the hotel and headed off on the dirt road.  You have never seen anything like this road.   It was just a dirt road full of pot holes and ridges, the rumor is that a certain airline is paying off the government not to do up the road so that more people will fly to avoid taking the trip by road.  The road conditions didn't seem to stop our taxi driver too much though, he was flying along, car bouncing all over the place. Austin Fitzpatrick would make a killing out here, suspensions must go on a regular basis.  So after 3 hours (about 165km) we arrived in Battanbang. 

Cambodian food and Karoke..can't get much better!

We spent just the next day there relaxing-after the traveling from the previous week-3 overnight buses, 3 train journeys later we needed to recharge!  It was a really nice place to relax after the mayhem of Bangkok.
Next stop:; Siam Reap.  We decided to go by boat to Siam Reap (going to be spending long enough on the train home!).  You pass through a bird sanctuary along the way but to be honest neither of us say any birds, we were too busy with what was happening on board the boat.  The driver wasn't the best on the steering and  kept taking corners on the river too wide and hitting the bank. 

Our delux boat to Siam Reap

All well and good if the rucksacks on the roof are tied in.  At one stage we look around and someones rucksack has fallen into the water, the driver jumps in to get it and all is well again, no explanation or anything just keeps on driving!.  Until the next time.  We lost a big clump of bananas which we had to go back for, then the engine gave up for awhile, eventually making it to Siam Reap two hours late.   A good journey all in all.

Angkor Wat at sunrise

In Siam Reap we visited the famous Anchor Wat and the surrounding temples. It would  probably have been easier to just get a tuk tuk for the day to explore them but we were abit sick of being driven around the place so we rented bikes instead. At 4.20am we collected the bikes, cycled off in the darkness-no streetlights, no lights on our bikes and only a rough idea of the direction we were meant to be heading in. Its always good to be organised.  We did manage to take a slight detour (it's an easy thing to do when you can't see where you're going) but made it there for sunrise.  Anchor Wat is pretty amazing, this hugh big wat surrounded by a moat and hidden away behind forest. 

Tomb raider - Stephen Roche

After we we had a look around we went to see other temples in the area.  The temple were they shot some of tomb raider has been left to its own devices so there's loads of  trees growing up through the buildings and dodgy structures everywhere.  Some great photo opportunities if you could get there before the tour groups of 100+ Japs did. I decided to give one of the temples a miss (After seeing the big climb up to it..) but Gareth climbed up to this temple and lookout and managed to get chased down by a monkey...he was  able to make his getaway thanks to one of the workers who used a radio to entertain the monkey.   

My monkey decoy