S'iam Reap-ing the fuuuun that i sow
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2008
1
19
22
Trip End
May 06, 2008
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Monday, March 31, 2008
Arrived and got taken by tuktuk to the hostel where we wanted to stay, but tehy were full. Queue crack of thunder and pouring rain. so tuktuk drives like a maniac, were clingiing on for dear life to our bags, precariously wobbling on the front. HE turns sharply into a guesthouse and drives through the border of palms to the porch and under it. we decide to stay. i think hes happy. The rest of that day we were confined to that room, unfortunately there was a t.v which meant we accidentally watched The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. the new one obviously...and discussed the levels of attractiveness/annoyngness of the characters. then we watched alot of WWF wrestling and wrote our journals. Went out for some din when the rain had subsided and found a place called Temple Bar, which had some traditional dancers doing their thang. There was a guy LOVING being dressed up as a peacock. i feel he was more comfortable in the makeup than the girl. drank some Angkor BEer, not as nice as Beerlao i have to say, and tehn went to the night market. Holly received a Same Same, But Different teeshirt from us as well...if you are unfamilliar with this concept, if you boil it all down, everything here is same same, but different- guesthouses, restaurants...its all the same....we are in fact same, same, but different. i wanted a shirt too, but we thought it would be too sad. and samey.
The next day we got up laterrss and went to look around (at the market)...stopped to ask for directions in a crazy posh hotel which was SOOO AIR CONNED AND POSH. they sent us on our way quickly however, all sweaty and fake la-coste-y. Cambodia is without doubt the hottest place on earth.
'hello lay-deeee you buy scarf?' is what everyone says. 'all silk, all silk'- everything here is silk. nylon is silk, polyester is silk. it became a running joke, we had to take it in turns to ask if marble, wood, plastic, was in fact silk. sometimes they were DEFINATELY silk! Decided to eat in a restaurant called dead fish, after meeting some rich englishwomen with a 'driver' who recommended it...basically it is a multi tiered health and saftey nightmare- imagine, 40 foot to the ceiling, many platforms with pulleys to take your orders to you, selling alcohol! and whats more, they have about 8 full grown crocs in a pen cos it used to be a croc farm and they didnt want to sell them to the meat trade. fair dos. had rubbish noodles, and the worst service at the first place weve come across where service is included. BAH! Bought some mangoes from the market, off a woman eating a foetal chick. basically once the eggs begin to develop ( blastocyst stage, any biologists reading) they skewer them and barbie them. it was half black half white and she kept pulling stuff out of it...made me wretch. although i do eat both egg and chicken this just seemed a bit wrong. Went back to the hotel to find that we had no electricity. this morning we had had no water, despite this fact they had managed to do our washing (WITHOUT DETERGENT-GRRRRRRRR) and lose one of my tops. the guy tried to give me a man's one instead. didnt fool me! met the 'talk for england couple' in a bar and ate and drank 'Angkor Sunsets'- they talked for england, tehy had been to angkor that very day, their favourite temple was the tree one, it has trees wrapped around it, in some ways the trees were better than the temple itself, he does love his trees, yes he does...........................................
Up at 5am to go to Angkor to see the sunrise..were cold for the first time zoooming along on the tuktuk...arrived just in time to see it,which was cool. tehre were wild horses roaming around and for a while we found ourselves alone, perched at the top of one of teh lesser temples at angkor, in silence. there were mILLLLLIONS of tourists there, but it didnt detract too much from the experience. down creepy cool tunnels you would stumble across mini shrines with candles burning. Its a shame, during teh war the temples werel looted and most of the buddhas are now headless. Angkor is the most famous of the complex nbetwork of temples, which spread out for 34 square kilometers. its the one with the three towers - i believe Cambodia to be the only country with a national monument on its flag. i may be incorrect.
After seeing that, and our first MONKEY of the trip, who was chilling on the stone bridge over the river, (non rabid you will be pleased to know, the primate not the river) we went to Angkor Thom- which has HUGE 8 foot faces staringf at you from every angle. i honestly haev absolutely no idea how they were ever put up there. Met the cousin of Scabalicious- this dog had a hole the size of an apple, just removed of flesh in its back. you could see its bones. i was eating. grossss.... next we climbed to the top of a massive temple which was basically just some stairs. it was almost midday and i think my body was attempting to create pores to chuck sweat out of. We walked along the elephant walkway, couldnt work out why it was called that until we got off and then realiesed that tehre were 8 foot stone elephants holding it up. missed the terrace of the leper king- couldnt find it.
lastly, after lunch and a while searching for the elusive Tuktuk we went to the Tallest temple in Angkor, the stone was HOTTTT and really steep. some small children skipped past us making us feel silly. Lastly, the grand finale was teh 'ANgelina Temple' as we named it, the one in tombraider!! WOOOO! we were idiots and tried to walk on all the ground so as to be able to say we walked in Angelinas footprints, and posed with our 'guns' hanging from vines and the likes. the french tourists were vaguely amused by us, some were more interested in us faffing around than in the tree entangled stone work. gotta love trees. mmm.
That night we met up with hollys cousin Olly, but were pretty darn knackered so arranged to have dins with him and his friend sam the night after. at teh dead fish. apparently the fish and chips is amazing. Laundry still hasnt turned up.
Next day, it happens to be lunchtime by the time were up- so we go and eat at a local place called the 'khymer kitchen'- mick jagger has eaten tehre, so we take some jagger wide mouthed photos whilst we wait for our food. IT WAS SOOO GOOD. i had a pumpkin thing. cant describe it, will attempt to reconstruct it when i get home if anyone is interested? Then, as Siem ReaP IS so small we decided to base our whole day on eateriesss- went to a place called 'butterfly garden', which was surprisingly lacking in butterflies...via another posh hotel that had SCENTED air con! a wooop- as you can tell, little things have become vair important!
That evening, after finally getting my top back (doubt it has seen the washing machine) we went to meet Sam and Ollie....got an amazing platform seat, right above the little dancing stage where a embarrased dancer stood for a good five mins waiting for the music to start! our beer arrived on a pulley system, and sam and ollie arrived with some american girls who ignored us, and a pretentious londoner....had a really nice meal, fish and chips was sadly for england, the best ive ever consumed, and then we sat on a rickety balcony esque thang chatting. Pretentious Londoner likes 'Jack Wills' girls, ie tracky bums, messy hair, big oversized bags, you get the idea, look like theyve just 'fallen out of bed looking fabulous'- we haev a debate about this, due to the fact that they spend bloody HOURS getting ready to look like theyve only taken 5 mins. he likes the fact that the 'spend ages trying to look good for guys'- good god. we leave as were flying to borneo via Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, and they go to 'get the girls out'. apparently there are some 'well cool' 'gals' at their hostel who should be 'a lot of fun'. one of them he refers to as 'Ginge' cos he cant be arsed to remember her name.
The next day we have to PAY to LEAVE cambodia. 25 dollardollars! pahhhhh. almost miss our flights as the guy 'forgets' to update the electronic board. do the walk of shame down the aisle of the plane.....whooops!
