Day 88

Bjorn and I headed out again to Angkor Wat today and left Susan behind. She was "templed-out" and stayed around the guest house. Bjorn wanted to call in at the tourist police and report his mobile phone stolen. He had it stolen in Don Det - I reminded him that Don Det was in Laos, and not Cambodia and that the Cambodian Tourist Police had enough to worry about to be solving Laos crimes too. It turned out he'd been too ill to go to the Laos police and his insurers wanted him to visit the Cambodian police to get a report filled out.

1 The Cambodian Police notice board

As we waited in the tourist police waiting room I looked at the walls showing previous successes of the Cambodian Tourist Police Department. There were pictures of police officers handing back cash and cameras to tourists all posing beneath the department banner. Bjorn and I sniggered as we saw how the best of the "crime solving" involved giving back handed-in lost property and mediating between guest houses and tourists with respect to final check out bills. There was even the odd picture of a tourist who had "become dizzy" and needed rescuing up steeps steps in the temples of Angkor.

2 Another nice one of Angkor

The police officer nearly laughed when Bjorn tried to report a crime from another country but to be fair to Bjorn he told the whole story well about the request from the insurers. He even asked for written acknowledgement that he had been there and tried but that was refused too. He had to settle for me taking a picture of him outside the place just to show that he had at least tried.

We went to Angkor Wat again and the Bayon again. Both times we had a closer look at the bas-reliefs around the walls. There was so much detail and so many stories told by the carvings that it was tough keeping concentration for that! We must have walked two miles around the walls but it was rewarding to learn about all the military victories of the Khmer people. To be fair to them they also had the odd account of military defeats they suffered mostly from the Chinese.

3 The Bas-Reliefs at Angkor

South West of the main group of Angkor is a seperate group called the Rolus group. We were up for it even if our tuk-tuk driver wasn't but we headed out there to see those three as well. I enjoyed it but now I'm feeling all "templed-out" which is funny since Thailand is full of temples and I'm going there next!

We met up in the evening again with Arjen and Audrey. Gabi came along too and we all ate at a traditional Khmer restaurant.

4 One of the Rolus Group