22/1/2011
When I got up at 5.30 I was exhausted. I showed up at the bus station for a 7.30 bus at 7.10 and Xanthe said she was there but I could find no sign of her. By 7.25 we ascertained that she had gone to the wrong bus station, so she jumped on a moto and made it to the station with only a couple of minutes to spare. Phew. The ride was pretty uneventful and somehow I managed to fall asleep for an hour or so despite our drivers trigger happy honking (which is louder inside the bus than out). On one of the stops we met an employee of the bus company who told us that as the bus station is just outside the city the company would provide a complimentary shuttle into the center if we did not have a pick up. He stayed to chat and we discovered that his name was Thoul (pronounced 'tool', I had a giggle as Xanthe told her mum this (I am 3 years old)) and he filled us in on some of his life story. When we reached Siem Reap he guided us to the shuttle and came with us. He eventually worked out where our hotel was and said it was 'very far' and so the shuttle could not take us so he would drive us in his tuk tuk. He later became our driver for the entire trip and was wonderful. (Very far also meant 2 minutes from the center of town, nothing compared to where I live in Phnom Penh which does not even feature on the city map). At this time I also recieved several messages from Mum telling me that Dad was in the hospital awaiting finger surgery. So the first thing I did when we got to the hotel was call home, luckily to find out that everything was fine. Phew
The hotel we stayed at was called Avista Hotel and was very nice. For $15 a night we had a lovely air conditioned room with 2 king single beds, a desk, fridge, tv, closet and bathroom. The best part bar none was the shower... warm water! The staff were also really helpful and friendly. Around 5 Xanthe and I headed out to the temples to watch the sunset. Our fabulous driver Thoul also let us in on a little secret. The tickets you buy to enter the Angkor complex are valid for either 1 day, 3 days or 1 week, however if you buy them ater 4pm you can go in that evening for free! YAY for us. Apparently the best place to see sunset is from Phnom Bakheng, a temple at the top of a hill (hence the Phnom), so naturally that is where we went. Just about every other tourist in the country was also there but it was still beautiful. The ruins were amazing but climbing them was tricky. it seems that the ancient Khmer people had very tiny feet and so all the stairs have a ridiculously tiny depth meaning that you have to go up sideways and even then falling is a great possibility. Due to this when we got down afterwards I think one very lucky British tourist now has a photo of me doing a little victory dance at the bottom! So having made it to the top to watch sunset (getting very dusty in the process) Xanthe and I started a mini competition between us of who could get the most artistic photo. This lasted until she left on Monday afternoon but I ultimately won with a photo of a little boy looking for crabs in Kep. As a sideline to this competition we have also been trying to take sneaky photos of monks.
Having seen the most beautiful sunset and stumbled down the hill in the dark we proceeded to head to a very Cambodian restaurant for dinner, The Pizza Company. Neither of us had eaten since breakfast so by 6 we were both starving and craving comfort food. Sadly neither of us could eat much as we were so exhausted so we took most of it back to the hotel to stick in the fridge.
23/1/2011 (Xanthe's 21st birthday!)
We had the brilliant idea to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. This involved getting up at 5am which was horrible but well worth it later. So having dragged our butts out of bed we were in the tuk tuk at 5.45. The drive into the Angkor complex is beautiful, a dirt type road surrounded by forrest. You then come up to the moat from the south side and go around to the Angkor Wat entrance on the west. As soon as we stopped we were bombarded by children selling guide books and coffee. One boy begged us to go to his shop for breakfast and told us his name was Harry Potter, easy to remember. We soon discovered that naming yourself after a celebrity is a bit of a theme for the locals and within 15mins we had also met Angelina Jolie and Rambo. Rambo was the weirdest, offering us beer at 6.30 making us wonder just how many westerners accept this offer? It was still very dark as we entered so we couldn't see much of the entrance gate but the main temple was easily spotted. We sat by a pond to watch the sunrise which was beautiful and great for our photo competition as the water provides a mirror image of the temples. I eventually caved and bought a guidebook and we set off to explore the temple. All up I think we spent around 3 1/2 hours looking around Angkor Wat and took at least 500 photos as it was just so incredible. We also perfected the art of non-suspiciously hanging around people that had payed for a guide so we could eavesdrop on the info :-)
Before heading to the next set of temples we stopped for coconut shakes (the best drink ever!) and met a couple of lovely Cambodian kids who talked with us for about 20mins, we even bought them shakes too even though it was their store. Then we headed to Angkor Thom, a large complex (city wall style) with a bunch of temples in the middle. First we visited Bayon a relatively large temple (though small in comparison to Angkor Wat) which features many carved faces (Xanthe and I both really liked this one). Then we went to Bapuon which fortunately for my feet was closed but we still got a good look at the outside before heading over to the Royal Palace. The king that lived here (it was where he would meet his mistress) must have been very fit because it is up the top of a big tower. For the more authentic experience Xanthe and I chose to take the original (aka tiny and steep) stairs in favour of the newly constructed ones. Somehow we made it to the top to find the most stunning view and our appetites. Instead of finishing Angkor Thom we just went back into Siem Reap for lunch.
As it was Xanthe's birthday we found a nice looking restaurant in the Lonely Planet that was set in a butterfly garden. While still very pretty the hundreds of butterflies they promoted was a bit of an exaggeration but the food was good so all was forgiven. After that we hit the markets and spent more money than we should have and then rested at the hotel until our next temple excursion. Around 3 we headed out to Ta Prohm, the second most famous Angkor temple (in the western world at least) due to its appearance in Tomb Raider. It was absolutely incredible and we both had a great time, even managing to wind up on the wrong side of a DO NO ENTER sign. At one point Xanthe asked me "hey is this where they tombed film raider". Yes Xanthe.
After yet another rest at the hotel Xanthe and I went out for dinner at 7. We chose a Cambodian BBQ restaurant called BBQ Suki. Cambodian BBQ is really fun, you have this barbeque thing with a moat around it (looks kind of like a lemon juicer) in the middle of your table. You pour soup into the moat and cook veges and noodles in there once it has boiled, you then rub pork fat over the bbq part and then cook your meat on the side. We even tried crocodile meat! Tastes a lot like chicken. To finish off the night we went to the night markets where we once again spent too much money. We also tried a fish massage which is where you sit on the edge of a giant fish tank with your feet in the water while the fish nibble the dead skin off them. It tickles like hell but your feet come out feeling super smooth.
24/1/2011
Monday morning was the last time Xanthe had to spend in Siem Reap before she had to head back to Kompong Speu to work. We had decided to use the morning to visit Banteay Srei, a small but well known (to the locals anyway) temple about an hour out of town. Before heading out we went for breakfast at the Cafe De La Paix, a western style cafe attached to the very fancy and expensive hotel in the centre of the city. I was very excited to see Eggs Benedict on the menu as I haven't had poached eggs (my favourite) since I left home. The two of us also got very excited when we saw Iced Coffee on the menu, unfortunately it was a more western form and somehow the worst I've ever tasted, Xanthe agreed.
After breakfast we headed out to Banteay Srei. The drive up there was almost as nice as the temple itself as we went through more of the forrest and passed some villages and farms. It smells so much better here than it does in Phnom Penh. Banteay Srei was absolutely gorgeous, it is known as the Women's Temple because of the delicate and intricate carvings. The gift shop at the temple had the most amazing earrings of which I bought three pairs (to be fair two were as gifts) on the way out. The ride in the tuk back to the hotel was the best as despite only being 11.00 am it was boiling hot. When we arrived at the hotel the manager informed us that there had been a mix up with Xanthe's bus pick up and she would need to get to the bus station on her own. So we headed out for lunch on the way to take her to the bus station. We asked Thoul to recommend somewhere to eat and he took us to a Cambodian restaurant called Orchidee. I only had some mango and a lime soda due to the fact that my stomach had reacted badly to breakfast although Xanthe told me that their food was incredible. Having eaten, the two of us went to the bus station were we said our goodbyes which was sad as we didn't think we'd be likely to see each other again. When she had gotten onto her bus I turned around and headed back to the temples to finish off exploring the Angkor Thom complex. I started at the Elephant Terrace and Victory Gate and trotted off past the Terrace of the Leper King to the slightly isolated temple of Preah Palilay. Unlike the majority of tourists I decided to explore the right hand side of the complex, which meant walking down from Preah Pithu past the Suor Prat Towers and the Khleangs until I reached my driver waiting back at Bayon. These temples are hidden in the bush only just off the road through the center of the complex. While I was exploring the Preah Pithu collection of temples a young boy began to follow me around and ask a lot of questions. When he randomly walked off I started to freak out, thinking that he had gone to get someone capable of kidnapping me. I was thoroughly relieved when he came back alone but made sure to say no when he asked me if I was alone. I finished the day by watching TV and not eating dinner.
25/1/2011
Before I headed out at 9am I had already planned out my first solo tourist day, visiting more temples while I still had a day left on my pass. In the morning I visited Thommanon, Chao Say Tevoda and Bantaey Kdei along with Srah Srang, the King's Swimming Pool. I'm not so sure it was actually a pool given that it was nearly a km long, the temples were beautiful though, as usual. Having followed the very vague and wrong instructions of Lonely Planet I ended up at a very average little cafe place before getting the most amazing flavour of sorbet in the world (canberry and green apple). I stayed at the hotel until three in order to avoid the hottest part of the day, rest and phone home. Despite the phone reception on a random island in the Gulf of Thailand being perfectly clear the reception in Siem Reap, most popular tourist destination and second largest city in Cambodia, is terrible.
In the afternoon I visited the two last temples of the trip, East Mebon and Pre Rup. and surprise suprise they were beautiful and amazing yadda yadda yadda. My day ended with a early dinner (very early 4.45, said the nana) before I once again situated myself in front of the crime channel for the night.
26/1/2011
I began Wednesday the same as Tuesday at nine am except that I skipped breakfast as my stomach has decided that more than one meal a day is a terrible, terrible idea. I started the day off by visiting the Landmine Museum and the Butterfly Centre. Both were very small but nice (if one can call a landmine museum nice). I did pick up some cool landmine shaped soap. As I had finished both and ended up back in town by 11 I hit the Angkor National Museum before lunch. The museum was pretty good, a bit anal though as you couldn't take a bag with you, but they did hand out cute little pouches so you could take valuables with you. I also picked up a stuffed Vishnu doll in the gift shop.
The Lonely Planet guide (and the big sign on the wall outside) spoke of a nice mall/strip thing attached to the side of the museum, cleverly named museum mall. I figured with the cafes and what not attached that it would make a nice place to go for lunch, hmm. It turned out that the mall was completely empty save for a broken ATM and a Chinese restaurant. So Chinese it was for lunch, which was brilliant until I'd eaten one pork dumpling and a forkful of noodles and I realised that I can no longer eat without feeling ill. So feeling absolutely terrible I headed off to my last stop of the day, the Cambodian Cultural Village. The village was really cool. It started with a cute little wax museum with creepy renditions of various Khmer peoples. Then I wandered through a garden with various miniatures of buildings in Phnom Penh. The rest of the 'village' was a bunch of small recreations of various village types to be found through the country (and time). It was sort of like the closest Cambodia will get to a theme park. To finish off the day I stopped by a luggage store to accomodate the extra stuff I'm bringing home.
27/1/2011
For my last day I had organised to do a day long boat cruise on the Tonle Sap Lake to see the floating villages and the flooded forest, all starting at 7-7.30 with the hotel pick-up. So I had myself down in the lobby and ready to go at 6.50. So I did some work on my blog until 7.15. I then proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes sitting on a couch waiting for the bus and having the non-english speaking secretary rush over every 5 minutes and insist that my ride was in fact coming. This switched to the manager at 8 though and she then ran over to me every few seconds (or so it seemed) until 8.30 when she informed me that she had booked the tour I had assured her 5x I wanted on the 27th (and had to write down 3 times to be sure) for the 28th. So having rearranged that for an alternative sunset cruise I returned to my room to watch TV until 2.30 as I had already done everything I had wanted to in Siem Reap and anything else would take too long.
Eventually I managed to get picked up (the bus ran on Cambodian time, aka late) and headed off for the trip. Nearly all of the 8 others where French except for one Singaporean couple who were lovely and travel to NZ on a regular basis, giving us something to talk about. Before arriving at the dock we stopped to take photos of rice paddies and had a look at the GECKO center, a small (and dull) museum type thing about the ecology of the Tonle Sap Lake. The boat ride was quite nice except somehow I managed to choose the only seat on the entire boat that got wet. A small boy even jumped onto our boat at one point off a passing one to sell drinks. The floating village was pretty incredible, basically a huge group of shacks atop pontoons. They had every kind of building out there including markets, schools and basketball courts. We stopped at one of the markets during our trip. There were children of about 6 or 7 walking around with snakes (big ones) around their necks and there was a pit of crocodiles. They also had some rather disturbing souvenirs such as snakes in a bottle, needless to say I didn't buy any. Finally we stopped at a large boat for dinner and to watch the sunset. The sunset was gorgeous and I took far too many photos. Having driven the tour boat back in the pitch black the tour guide offered to drop us at the Night Markets so I was able to get the last of my Siem Reap shopping done along with a manicure ($5!!).
28//1/2011
My last day (or morning to be precise) in Siem Reap was nice and easy. I relaxed and packed until 11.30 when I headed downstairs to check out and await my ride. The hotel manager gave me a cute little key ring as a departing gift and I befriended a cat in the lobby. It turns out that the cat had followed me in the night before and had since refused to leave, so my petting had probably just encouraged it to stay. Sorry Avista hotel, I just adopted you a cat.
The bus ride was pretty average. I slept for a couple of hours and finished my book. The coolest part however was when we pulled over in the middle of nowhere so that several army trucks could pass followed by 10 tanks, apparantly I missed the declaration of war!
Eventually I made it back to Phnom Penh around 7.
