Siem Reap, Cambodia

  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Saturday, July 5, 2008

We arrived in Siem Reap late last Friday night from Sihanoukville. The bus was supposed to take 9 hours but ended up being 11. Found a decent hotel (well at the time it was decent but later on we discovered was a mini-zoo. Grasshoppers, cockroaches, ants, beetle type things and a view of a crocodile farm out the back window!) and went for some more nice Cambodian food. Just walking around the town that evening we realised it was a lot more traveler friendly then the capital, Pnomh Penh.
On the Saturday we went for breakfast in a butterfly garden where local street children get a free breakfast for bringing and releasing baskets of butterflies into the garden. In the afternoon we didn't do much, we booked a full day sight-seeing for the following day and did a bit of planning for our time in Thailand. On Saturday night we went out for more nice Cambodian food then for a few quiet drinks, didn't want to be hung-over for the sight-seeing the next day.

Angkor Wat

Karl & Monkey in Angkor Wat

On Sunday morning our tuk-tuk driver/guide picked us up and brought us to Angkor Wat. This is the national symbol of Cambodia and a source of enormous national pride. It is claimed to be the biggest religious building in the world. We spent over an hour walking round it and I have to say it was just okay, nothing special. The highlight for me was when I saw some monkeys in the nearby woods and went over to them, a baby monkey befriended me, jumped on my back, shoulder and head and was just really friendly. Wanted to take him with me! 
After Angkor Wat we went to the next set of temples at Angkor Thom (or Bayon). We both thought these were much more impressive then Angkor Wat. The place consisted mainly of a load of giant stone faces looking out into the forest. The whole site was in a much better state of repair than Angkor Wat (which had scaffolding covering a lot of it) too. After Bayon we went to the temples where the film Tomb Raider was made. We were both really impressed with these temples too. Didn't see Angelina Jolie unfortunately, but the place was great to see.

Temples of Bayon

Tomb Raider Temples

On Sunday night we went back to our usual pub, The Temple, and stayed out to watch the Euro 2008 final. Had a good night but I can't say the same for all the Germans that were watching the game with us!
On Monday we had planned to check out the Landmine museum but the tuk-tuk drivers were asking for crazy prices to take us there, so we just hung around, spent a good time online researching Laos and Thailand and booked a bus to take us to Bangkok for Tuesday morning.
Overall, we spent just 10 days in Cambodia, we had planned to spend 3 weeks but the weather was so bad in Sihanoukville we didn't want to risk going up to the isolated north-east of the country. We wanted to go up there to go trekking etc. but if the weather was similar to Sihanoukville then we wouldn't be able to do anything. We loved Siem Reap though even if Cambodia as a whole was a little disappointing. If the weather was different I'd could easily be saying that it was the best country yet (with the exception of Nepal) but we'll never know. We were just unfortunate with the tail end of the typhoon hitting us at the wrong time. Looking forward to Thailand and Laos now!