Siem Reap, where the Angkor temples rule
Trip Start
Jun 06, 2008
1
14
23
Trip End
Aug 06, 2008
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Thursday, July 10, 2008
First things first we arrived from Luang Prabang 1 hour early (I guess there is not much air traffic when you get 6 incoming flights a day) and once arrived and gotten our visa, we hopped on motorbike/taxis with our huge backpackign bags on us and off to the main part of town, a 25 minute ride. Advice for the future, sitting behind someone on a motorbike whie carrying 20 pounds on your shoulders it not comfortable. Once downtown the meeting spot with Shady was Bar Street at 1:30 but my smart self semif-forgot that and I thought the meeting spot was Pub street (which is literally a 20 second walk from Bar Street) so Dom and I waited there forever until we finally found someone that knew Continetal Guesthouse where Shady was staying
Angkor Wat at Sunrise
. Which was another 35 second walk from our drop off point. So leave the stuff our room and go look for Shady which was made much easier by the fact that Shady had quit looking for us and was on her way to the Hotel. Once all reunited we decided to hire a driver and tuk tuk for 2 full days and that evening for 23 dollars total. Thanks to this we were able to go see Angkor Wat, the main one of the temples, at sunset with very little tourist crowd around us so the day after we could skip it and therefore get ahead of the crowd (smartest decision we could have made since temples with no1 around you take you to a different world where it's you, nature, and huge temples that you can hardly pathom how they were built). Also, if anyone was wondering entrance for 2 or 3 days is teh same price at a whopping $40 but well worth it. These tempels will exceed your wildest expectations! Once back fro Angkor Wat we ate dinner and went to the bar for literally a beer before crashing.
The following morning, our good old (literally) driver An was ready waiting for su at 5AM as agreed ready to drive us to the temples to see Angkor Wat during the sunset and then the otehr temples. If anyone is familiar with them, we did the "large circle" that day which included Prasat Kravan, Ta Prohm, Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Son, Neak Pean, Proah Khas, Phnom Beakeag
Angkor Wat behind me
. (the 90 degrees sun, hikes up the stone uneven stairs, kids begging you to buy their stuff and getting mad if you don't were all freebies).That night (after a nice short nap) we found a restaurant which had a free 2 hour dance (called Asphara...youtube it if you really are BORED to the extreme) as you ate typical of the area. Don't get me wrong, I would never pay so see that but when it's free it's always better. The food was good but the waiter, in good SE Asia style, literally took 15 minutes to bring the check. I guess it was really hard to type up the prices. It's just insane to see the difference in waiter/restaurant etiquette between here and home.
After dinner we went to Angkor What? where we met and drank with some girls we recognized formt he airplane from Luang Prabang to Siem Reap and chatted and danced the night away until the early hours of the morning.
The morning after we woke up early so by 7 we met An outside our guesthouse waiting to see more temples. This time we hit the small cricle which included Ta Keo, Bayone in Angkor Thom, etc. I feel it's pointless that i keep writing down there hard to spell tempels because while to Erin (who better be reading this) it makes sense, to anyone else they could just as easily be cocktail names or rides at Six Flags. But before I change topic, I wanted to point out that we ended p getting these nice paintings for 2 dollars each which was cool and reminded me of my ingenuity in Bali when I paid 20 dollars and a t-shirt for a painting. Also, when we were in bayon, the temple with all the faces, we started chatting with one of the police/security guys and he ended up showing us around the temple explaining the history and carvings, telling us about the war and how the counryt was affected, and additionally taking pictures of us since his hobby is photography
Another temple
.Neeeeext, after all of this we'll move to 3PM which is when we finished our tour of Angkor (not to confuse with Angkor What? which is a bar or Angkor Wat which is only one of the many Angkor temples but still the most famous one) and An asked us if we wanted to see sunset too at Bayon which is very popular but you could imagine how we felt after so many hours of temples in the 90 degree suno we refused and paid him his well earned 23 dollars total. Once back we walked to the market where we (especially Dom and Shady) did some damage as usual and then we went to eat at the food stalls where a meal is $1. Fried rice and pork/beef/chicken only tastes good when it's $1. After dinner another night out at Angkor What? then sleep for 3 hours because at 7Am we had a tuk tuk coming to pick us up to go to the bus station (which was all included in the 11 dollar bus ticket to Phnom Phen.
So at 7 we were ready and by 7:30 there was a tuk tuk waiting outside our place so I asked him if he was the guy and the ride was free etc. and took his nodding as a yes. I should have known that people here nod for everything even when hey have no clue what you are telling them...actually they mostly do it when they don't know what's going on so once we made it to the bus we hopped on the driver wouldn't leave us alone because apparently he wasn't the driver for us and he wanted money. After a good 5 minute staring contest and trying to understand each other we won the battle and he left us alone. Whiel I felt bad, I made sure several times he was the right guy and all he said was yes and nodding so that's that.
So from here we got on our way to Phnom Phen, capital of Cambodia.
