Siem Reap, Cambodia

I've wanted to see Angkor Wat for a while, but I didn't realize until I got here that Angkor Wat is just one of the temples in a huge complex. The area is so large, you can buy a 7-day pass!

We arrived Monday night in Siem Reap, the town that neighbours the temples of Angkor Wat. We were fortunate that we were at the back of the prop plane from Bangkok, because we were first off the plane, and first in line at customs. We were duly processed, and then my bag was the first off the conveyor! The last passenger we think must have waited over an hour to get through immigration and customs, because they are rather methodical. But the visa is the nicest looking visa I've ever got, better even than the transit visa for Latvia or the full-page stamp from Mongolia.

Siem Reap is a bustling town, barely able to keep up with all the increasing number of tourists. In a few years I worry it will be like Koh Phi Phi :(

We booked a tuktuk driver through the hotel, and started out to see the temples. A tuktuk is a motorcycle with a 2-person cart attached to the back. For $10 a day, we had our own personal escort.

First we stopped off to buy a 3-day pass. It's a really nice looking pass (Cambodia seems to be good for official souvenirs).

The first temple was Bayon, which is quite overwhelming in size and detail. It's one of the top 3 temples, and was overrun by tourists. However, it was still my personal favourite.

Next we saw (I'm mostly listing these for my reference) Phimeanakas, Baphuon, Terrace of the Leper King, Terrace of the Elephants, and Prasats Suor Prat. It was stinking hot, and we were struggling just to move in the sun. We stopped for lunch at one of the stalls that are outside most of the ruins, we both had the chicken and ginger with rice which was excellent.

After lunch we saw the Victory Gate, Thommanom (Marissa's favourite), Chau Say Thevoda, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm, and finished at Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is huge, and the amount of detail is amazing. There's thousands of metres of bas relief images, they just go on forever.

We stayed there for the sunset, Angkor Wat looks really good in the dusk lighting. I was also lucky that two monks in bright orange robes decided to walk across the front in a perfect pose for my picture :)

Nine hours after starting, we returned back to the hotel, exhausted and in need of air conditioning.

The next day we planned out a bit better. The first day was rather slow; we covered the suggested 2nd and 3rd day itineraries into one day, which meant more frequent rides in the tuktuk which provided a breeze to cool us down. (The temples are about 3km apart).

We saw Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Pre Rup, Sras Srang, Banteay Kdei, Prasat Kravan and saw the sunset from Phnom Bakheng.

Even though we covered the highlights on Day 1, the temples on Day 2 were still amazing. Every one had something different that made it interesting.

We ran into the French guy that we met in Hat Ton Sai at Ta Som! So we met up for dinner last night. He's really interesting, and we drank away the night, getting home around 3ish.

Today is an admin day -- buying souvenirs, sending emails, getting massages... and then tomorrow Marissa returns to Bangkok and I'm off to southern Laos.

I've kinda messed up my access to money. There are no ATMs in Cambodia or Laos, so you have to go into a bank to get a cash advance. Normally that's not a problem, except my Visa is so worn out, the signature panel says Void Void Void -- which ATMs don't care about, but officious bank people do. So I went to use my backup, my Mastercard. Except I haven't used that in years, and didn't realize it expired last year. So Marissa got some money out for me; and it has to last me until I get back to Thailand. It shouldn't be a problem though.

The internet connection speeds here are really slow so I'm not going to try to upload any pictures. I've taken a couple hundred though -- with digital I'm taking way more pictures.

That's it for now!