Siem Reap means 'Siam Defeated' after Ankor Wat was captured back from the Thais, bet you didn't know that did you? Thought I'd start with a fact this time. We rolled into a bus station bloody miles from town, where the gates were locked behind the bus as it entered to keep all of the tuk-tuk drivers at bay. Was quite funny to watch as we had the benefit of booking our guesthouse ahead and sorted our free pickup, so had no need to deal with the hyper blokes shouting and postulating at the gates. We got to our guesthouse after a good bit of fresh air in our little tuk-tuk, and immediately headed out to find a shop to get some cold drinks. Jo and I both still felt crap from our bargain pizza the night before in Phnom Penh, and had no interest in eating, so we collapsed on the bed with the ceiling fan going full tilt in a vain attempt to cool the room. Jo dozed off by about 7.30, and I lasted 'til a bit later.
We awoke next morning with rumbling stomachs after not eating the day before, and sat down to the free brekkie of tea, coffee, eggs and toast. Was modest, but did the trick. We then found our way into town, and spent the day planning our route of the famous Ankor Wat and other many sundry temples. We spoke to a few tuk-tuk guys, and one nice bloke got the hump with me when I wouldn't 'promise' him I'd go with him. I then got wound up with the bloke in our guesthouse who wanted $12 for one day, but $45 for 3 days! He couldn't work out what was wrong with that! We abandoned hope and went to pub street for some grub and watch some Olympics.
In the morning after some grub, we found a bloke who wasn't trying to flog a 'tour' (not a tour, just a route that they take) and was willing to go to where we wanted and in the order we wanted. Jo found it funny in all the negotiations that barely anyone listened to us and just said "no, we won't do that, I'll take you there instead"! Imagine a taxi driver in the UK saying that! "No mate, I won't take you to Oxford, I'll just drop you off at Milton Keynes"! Anyway, he was a nice bloke, and whisked us off to the ticket office and onward to an array of temples increasing in size and stature as we progressed. I can't decribe them all (this blog is boring enough as it is for you few readers), but I can summarise that:
• Baphuon looks like the castle in Mario 64
• Phimeanakas at the top looks like King Louies palace in The Jungle Book
• Bayon is the one with the cool but bit freaky heads everywhere
• All of the temples are being sponsored and repaired by different countries, which is unfortunately meaning that some are delicately and sympathetically done (France, Germany), some are taking forever (Japan), and some look terrible and are being repaired with shitloads of concrete (China... Who else) which just looks terrible.
• Trees can straddle thousand year old stone walls like lapdancers
• We didn't make it to Ankor Wat on day 1
That is the long and short of 8-9 hours walking around the temples. We got showered, headed out and found a brilliant little family run place doing great Khmer food, then had a drink watching the Olympics again before an early night.
Day 2 in the temples was a more relaxed affair. We hired bikes (would have used motorbikes for the whole thing, but you can't rent them anywhere in Siem Reap, probably so that tuk-tuk drivers won't go out of a job) and cycled the 6km to Ankor Wat, then spent about 4 hours wandering around it. Very impressive, especially the moat around the outside. Took lots of pics, then headed back to town, dropped off the bikes and showered, then went to town for coffee in the Blue Pumpkin, a trendy little cafe chain with air con and lovely big sofas. Jo then wanted to be pampered, but not by me, by some fish. She somehow persuaded me to join in (think it was the free beer that swayed it) and we sat down to have out tootsies munched by fish, but not like the ones in shopping centres in the UK, these were big buggers (you could gut and eat them) and we pretty hungry... Either that or we have minging feet... I'll pick the former. Due to me being unused to the experience, it took me 18 of the 20 minutes to stop giggling like a little girl. We then had a foot massage (I'm losing man points by the second here, it feels more like confession than a blog) and then sat in a bar for 20p beers and more Olympics. We got chatting to a really nice kiwi couple, but as is the way, we were meeting Jos friend from Ghana, Elysia and her boyfriend that night for drinks, and the kiwis were off the next morning. We spent so long chatting that we had to leg it to meet Elysia and her boyfriend Nathaniel at a cool little bar with $1 cocktails. We stumbled back and asked at our guesthouse about getting a tuk-tuk to Ankor Wat for sunrise the next morning. They quoted a silly number and said we would have to pay for him for the day despite our argument that he would be back by 9ish, so, convinced we could do better, we found a moto guy (a man with a scooter basically) and asked him and he said yes. The next morning, we blearily made our way towards the meeting spot and a man on a bike waved at us. We waved back and he came over, but I'm almost certain it wasn't the right bloke. This fact was reinforced by him asking me at every junction which way to go! Surely a moto-man would know the way to Ankor Wat in his own town! He then announced as he dropped us off that he wouldn't wait as we'd agreed (see, told you; wrong bloke) so we paid him half fare and away he went.
Sunrise at Ankor Wat is a bit hit and miss in wet season, and we weren't very lucky. The sky was pretty cloudy on the horizon, and the most interesting part of it was seeing all of the people around us, there were hundreds! As well as a western couple in wedding dress and morning suit there for a photo shoot. We sat down for a cup of coffee, as people dispersed after we saw nothing, then suddenly it broke through thr clouds. I legged it over to the big pond and got a couple of pictures of what we got up and crammed onto the back of a moto-man for before it quickly disappeared. We then had a wander around, went up to the very top, took some nice pics then found a cheap tuk-tuk to take us back to the guesthouse. The plan when we got back was to kip for an hour. I awoke at midday, and we eventually made it to town around 1 for lunch (with the best and cheapest ice coffee we've found so far), coffee, beer, Olympics, fish feet eating (forgive me Father, for I have sinned...), and dinner. We stumbled home late via the night markets and looked forward to a lie-in.
We decided to stay one more day a relax in Siem Reap by a pool, but this meant finding one, but all we found we tiny hotel pools and scattered rain showers, so we spent the day reading, playing Bananagrams, drinking, eating, and hunting down the gymnastics (which we also failed at). Had a great meal that night with our own little gas barbie, some beef, chicken, crocodile, goat and shrimp, a load of veg, noodles and rice and a load of soup/stock to cook it up with.
Next morning we were up earlyish and on the bus bound for Battambang!
We awoke next morning with rumbling stomachs after not eating the day before, and sat down to the free brekkie of tea, coffee, eggs and toast. Was modest, but did the trick. We then found our way into town, and spent the day planning our route of the famous Ankor Wat and other many sundry temples. We spoke to a few tuk-tuk guys, and one nice bloke got the hump with me when I wouldn't 'promise' him I'd go with him. I then got wound up with the bloke in our guesthouse who wanted $12 for one day, but $45 for 3 days! He couldn't work out what was wrong with that! We abandoned hope and went to pub street for some grub and watch some Olympics.
In the morning after some grub, we found a bloke who wasn't trying to flog a 'tour' (not a tour, just a route that they take) and was willing to go to where we wanted and in the order we wanted. Jo found it funny in all the negotiations that barely anyone listened to us and just said "no, we won't do that, I'll take you there instead"! Imagine a taxi driver in the UK saying that! "No mate, I won't take you to Oxford, I'll just drop you off at Milton Keynes"! Anyway, he was a nice bloke, and whisked us off to the ticket office and onward to an array of temples increasing in size and stature as we progressed. I can't decribe them all (this blog is boring enough as it is for you few readers), but I can summarise that:
• Baphuon looks like the castle in Mario 64
• Phimeanakas at the top looks like King Louies palace in The Jungle Book
• Bayon is the one with the cool but bit freaky heads everywhere
• All of the temples are being sponsored and repaired by different countries, which is unfortunately meaning that some are delicately and sympathetically done (France, Germany), some are taking forever (Japan), and some look terrible and are being repaired with shitloads of concrete (China... Who else) which just looks terrible.
• Trees can straddle thousand year old stone walls like lapdancers
• We didn't make it to Ankor Wat on day 1
That is the long and short of 8-9 hours walking around the temples. We got showered, headed out and found a brilliant little family run place doing great Khmer food, then had a drink watching the Olympics again before an early night.
Day 2 in the temples was a more relaxed affair. We hired bikes (would have used motorbikes for the whole thing, but you can't rent them anywhere in Siem Reap, probably so that tuk-tuk drivers won't go out of a job) and cycled the 6km to Ankor Wat, then spent about 4 hours wandering around it. Very impressive, especially the moat around the outside. Took lots of pics, then headed back to town, dropped off the bikes and showered, then went to town for coffee in the Blue Pumpkin, a trendy little cafe chain with air con and lovely big sofas. Jo then wanted to be pampered, but not by me, by some fish. She somehow persuaded me to join in (think it was the free beer that swayed it) and we sat down to have out tootsies munched by fish, but not like the ones in shopping centres in the UK, these were big buggers (you could gut and eat them) and we pretty hungry... Either that or we have minging feet... I'll pick the former. Due to me being unused to the experience, it took me 18 of the 20 minutes to stop giggling like a little girl. We then had a foot massage (I'm losing man points by the second here, it feels more like confession than a blog) and then sat in a bar for 20p beers and more Olympics. We got chatting to a really nice kiwi couple, but as is the way, we were meeting Jos friend from Ghana, Elysia and her boyfriend that night for drinks, and the kiwis were off the next morning. We spent so long chatting that we had to leg it to meet Elysia and her boyfriend Nathaniel at a cool little bar with $1 cocktails. We stumbled back and asked at our guesthouse about getting a tuk-tuk to Ankor Wat for sunrise the next morning. They quoted a silly number and said we would have to pay for him for the day despite our argument that he would be back by 9ish, so, convinced we could do better, we found a moto guy (a man with a scooter basically) and asked him and he said yes. The next morning, we blearily made our way towards the meeting spot and a man on a bike waved at us. We waved back and he came over, but I'm almost certain it wasn't the right bloke. This fact was reinforced by him asking me at every junction which way to go! Surely a moto-man would know the way to Ankor Wat in his own town! He then announced as he dropped us off that he wouldn't wait as we'd agreed (see, told you; wrong bloke) so we paid him half fare and away he went.
Sunrise at Ankor Wat is a bit hit and miss in wet season, and we weren't very lucky. The sky was pretty cloudy on the horizon, and the most interesting part of it was seeing all of the people around us, there were hundreds! As well as a western couple in wedding dress and morning suit there for a photo shoot. We sat down for a cup of coffee, as people dispersed after we saw nothing, then suddenly it broke through thr clouds. I legged it over to the big pond and got a couple of pictures of what we got up and crammed onto the back of a moto-man for before it quickly disappeared. We then had a wander around, went up to the very top, took some nice pics then found a cheap tuk-tuk to take us back to the guesthouse. The plan when we got back was to kip for an hour. I awoke at midday, and we eventually made it to town around 1 for lunch (with the best and cheapest ice coffee we've found so far), coffee, beer, Olympics, fish feet eating (forgive me Father, for I have sinned...), and dinner. We stumbled home late via the night markets and looked forward to a lie-in.
We decided to stay one more day a relax in Siem Reap by a pool, but this meant finding one, but all we found we tiny hotel pools and scattered rain showers, so we spent the day reading, playing Bananagrams, drinking, eating, and hunting down the gymnastics (which we also failed at). Had a great meal that night with our own little gas barbie, some beef, chicken, crocodile, goat and shrimp, a load of veg, noodles and rice and a load of soup/stock to cook it up with.
Next morning we were up earlyish and on the bus bound for Battambang!
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