Arriving in Cambodia was a little different to how i expected it. We got to the airport which was very nice and new looking we got straight through the visa line no problems and all the atm machines (there are a lot) give out the coveted US dollar. We got to the guesthouse that we had been reccommended after the taxi driver weakley tried to get us to stay somewhere else and then we spent about 4/5 days being sick, first sam and then me, watching HBo and reading with the occasional short trip out to get some food or drink. Once we were finally well enough we decided to make our first trip to the famous Angkor Wat.
After weighing up the options we decided to get bikes and cycle there. This was made easier as we had seen bikes we thought would be good as they had a nice bouncy spring suspension and were not expensive. I checked the brakes which were working enough and we set off and then a couple of minutes down the road when we decided to change gears we realised they did not work and were set in a high gear. This definately made the journey a little more difficult especially in the heat. We ended up exhausted on what should have been an easy ride and were over taken more than a few times by bikes with no gears and comfortable looking tourists in tuk tuks. We saw quite a lot and it was amazing but we decided to head back before sunset and to come back the next day with a tuk tuk!
This trip in the tuk tuk convinced us that it was the only way to do it as it meant we were not dying of heat exhaustion when we got to the temples and we had energy to explore a bit more. We saw the main temples of Angkor wat, the bayon, ta prohm and many others- i think 'templed out' is a popular phrase and we certainly felt it. The highlights for me were the bayon with all those faces and the magical ta prohm with its giant tree roots. We walked off the main tourist path to another temple called ta nei which we had been recommended by someone as being 'like ta prohm but better with more vegetation', it was not and is not worth the 20minute walk there and the 20 minutes back especially since i think we spent less than 5 minutes there! maybe we were hasty and there is something amzing hidden but after so many other more interesting temples it was a waste of energy.
There were so many people visiting angkor, i thought it was meant to be the low season but apparently not! The numbers were demonstrated splendidly when we went to watch sunset at the temple on the hill (i can't remember the name), there was hardly space at the top of the hill to sit and the amount of coaches, tuk tuks and other vehicles at the bottom of the hill was incredible. There were people from all over the world visiting, many in big tour groups which walked very slow, were very load and inconsiderate to those tourists in smaller groups. It made seeing the temples a little more difficult and meant that seeing them in the hottest part of the day was worth it as there were less of these groups. The sunset is one of the things that everyone goes to see and of course due to the nature of it everyone is at the same place at the same time. It was however pretty dissapointing we got there and could hardly see where the sun was it was so cloudy and so we left after holding on as long as we could to see if anything would happen. It just so happened that in the tuktuk back we could see a lovely sky.
It was so hot most days that we had to shower at least 3 times a day, this made exploring a lot of siem reap on foot unappealing. We did walk around a bit and ate at some nice (looking) restaurants including the famous red piano (tomb raider/jolie) and the unusual looking dead fish tower which had many levels and even some crocodiles which you can feed. One of the most constant sites in siem reap is the book sellers many of them land mine victims who have carts, some donated by people overseas selling copy books on cambodia and lonely planet guide books for all over the world. It is sad to see so many people including children who have been injured by landmines but it is also refreshing to see these people not beg for money by using peoples pity. There are also lots of children carrying around these books to sell as well as bangles and postcards- all of whom seem to have memorised the geography section of a world encyclopedia. They ask you what country you are from and they reel off the population, capital, country leader and many other facts, this along with the fact that they are all so cute! meant it was hard not to buy everything. There are a number of restaurants and shops which train local children so they can get a job especially in the service/tourist industry and others which give a percentage of profits to help. One of these we went to was a butterfly garden which was a lovely place to sit surrounded by flowers and butterflies. It is a shame we saw this on the last day.
I was definately glad to leave Siem reap for all the nice places to sit and charitable places it feels quite false, i am not sure really how else to describe it. And to move on especially after we ended up staying so long was definatley a relief.
