Siem Reap

Half way to Siem Reap

Our flight from Luang Prabang 'hopped' in Pakse (Southern Laos) and then descended across the flat plains of Northern Cambodia into Siem Reap's jazzy little airport. $40 lighter and one blank page less in the passport we emerged from arrivals to be met by 'Lucky' our tuk-tuk driver courtesy of Mother Home Guesthouse.

The Tuk-Tuk's here are different to the 'Auto-Rickshaw' type we saw in India. They are basically a 'horse & trap' configuration, but (obviously) with a moped rather than a horse. Surprisingly they are quite cool as the wind acts to keep the temperature down. Lucky delivered us and our luggage (which only just fitted into the trailer) safely to our guest house.

Romance is not dead (nor was the small flower worm...)

We were anticipating a lot from our new resting place given the fuss it makes about being number one on tripadvisor. And the place does deliver (five star facilities they ain't), but the constantly friendly service with cold towels every time you return to the hotel and smiling obliging faces at every request. On initial arrival they even go all out with fruit in the room and fresh flowers on the bed and in the bath - even if the flowers left a little maggot behind on the duvet.

Angkor Wat - temple number one

We arranged a couple more days of Lucky's time - selecting a couple of trips from the helpful tour board left in our room and then went to pick up two three day tickets for Siem Reap followed by an hour taking in sunset and some stunning views at Angkor Wat.

The bridge to Angkor Wat

Siem Reap (meaning 'Siam Defeated' an insult to Cambodia's Thai neighbours which is still relevant today - they constantly bicker) is home to a whole city of old temples (now by this time you may be thinking we are a bit sick of temples, but this is different). These were all built by a secession of egocentric kings about 800-1000 years ago. The biggest complex is Angkor Wat (and this is the name most associated with the area), but there are many, many, many more temples and buildings to this area than just that one. So after we bought our tickets, saw our first (Cambodian) temple we headed back for a dinner and an early night in anticipation of the next day.

Gateway to Angkor Thom

The next day we took the 'small tour' which concentrates on Angkor Wat and the buildings in the ancient city of Angkor Thom. We skipped Angkor Wat with the intention to come back later and headed straight into the ancient city via a fantastic bridge over a moat, each side held up by large god like statues and a large arched entrance topped by four faces looking out in each direction.

After walking through the gate we continued to view the structures contained within:

Temple two - my favourite

Bayon Temple - a favourite with something 40 or 50 towers each capped with similar faces to those we saw on the gate. The faces are supposed to be those of the King - it seems he was quite keen on his appearance.

Another temple

Bapuon Temple - a huge pyramid structure which some donut decided to take apart brick by brick and therefore, is now being reconstructed courtesy of the French.

Elephant Terrace

Elephant Terrace - as the name implies - a large terrace with lots of pictures of elephants - very nice!

Terrace of the Leper King

Terrace of Leper King - most of the buildings throughout the city have statues with limbs falling off and it seems that some idiot thought (sometime in the past) that meant the king that built this had leprosy. In fact as often happens the afflictions are age and weather related rather than trying to represent a medical condition.

The forest has taken over at many temples

and so it continued with at least four or five more buildings visited. Some of the temples we saw had been taken over by the forest with huge trees taking roots in the walls and ceilings of buildings. The saddest sight was the amount of young children (mainly girls, mainly aged 8-14) hawking postcards, water and other tourist paraphernalia. There was no question, these kids should have been in school and the local authorities really need to do more to enforce this.

Taking a break

By 1pm we were knackered, hot and dusty. We went back to hotel to wash and rest, leaving Lucky to search for more clients. We took a 20 minute walk down to the local market area which was very similar to the markets we had seen before - t-shirts, dresses, hooky DVDs, 'replica' watches and bizarrely a huge section devoted to sea food (a touch on the too stinky to eat side). The great part about the market is that it is situated in the buzzing area of town with loads of restaurants, bakeries, shops and bars (one of which was frequented by Angelina during Tomb Raider filming).

Day two - temple one

Day two we went on the Large Tour which takes in the temples that are further out. Rather than repeat myself - just imagine more heat (as we set out at 12:30pm - mistake!!), more steps (lots of climbing) and just as many people trying to sell you stuff. There were a couple of stand out structures - one where the temple was set in the middle of a set of man made water features and one huge monastery type thing with strange looking buildings and loads of trees taking root.

More forests

We were fairly sick of temples on day three and so decided to go horse riding. We booked the two hour trip (rather than a half day) the night before - afraid that the small Cambodian horses might not be able to carry my svelte figure for longer than 120 minutes. We were picked by tuk-tuk and driven about 20 mins to the other side of the city. The 'Happy Ranch' run by a Cambodian American (a very amiable chap called Sanny who left Cambodia courtesy of the US embassy 20 or so years ago).

Grand National winners

The Happy Ranch was very nice, the horses seem to be really well cared for and other than having to carry fat bastards like me they live quite a nice life. After mounting our horses and being told that my horse quite liked to (a) kick and (b) lie down, we (nervously) followed our guide into the Cambodian fields that surrounded the city. We ambled past farms and small holdings with pigs, dogs, tons of ducks, pools full of fish and masses of small children waving and saying 'hello.....bye-bye', reaching a little visited temple that was our half way stop after about an hour. On our way home we accelerated to trot and even canter a number of times which caused me great concern given that I have not ridden a horse properly for about 20 years. I needn't have worried and thanks to my surprisingly well behaved horse all I ended up with was 'saddle' bottom, sore muscles and a hunger for some more horse riding soon.

That afternoon we spent yet more time in the market area- buying t-shirts and some audio and video downloads from an enterprising chain called 'Rogue'. I assume they pay off the local authorities in order to maintain their presence!

The next day we were collected by our pre-booked mini-bus which was taking us five hours south to Phnom Penh, the capital and our last stop in Cambodia.