26 Sep
Caught the 830am bus and arrived in Siem Reap at 3pm. The bus ride itself was pretty smooth although the bus driver had a penchant for sounding the horn every 5 seconds. I didn’t sleep much throughout the 6 hour ride but kept myself entertained by reading and taking in the views of paddy fields and villagers going about their daily chores along the way, and thinking to myself that I could do this forever.
Upon arrival at Bou Savy Guesthouse, I took up the tuk tuk driver’s suggestion to catch the sunset at Phnom Bakheng, the first major temple to be constructed in the Angkor area in the late 9th century. It was a 20 minute trek up the 70m hill to reach Phnom Bakheng, followed by scaling some unimaginably steep steps up to the top of the temple. Steep steps are a common feature of all temple-mountains (temples shaped like mountains). The reason why they’re so steep was so that when people ascended the steps, they had to inevitably bend forward to support themselves and not fall backwards, and hence signified the act of bowing to the gods. Clever, eh?
The sunset was beautiful but not as spectacular as expected, and it was way overcrowded. However, I managed to see a distant Angkor Wat shrouded in greenery in the distance. It was also here that I bumped into the Chinese girl, Amanda, whom I’d met at Okay guesthouse (Phnom Penh) and we decided to visit the temple ruins together the day after. Later, we had dinner at Dead Fish, a guesthouse cum restaurant with pet crocodiles! If you ever come to Siem Reap, this place is worth a visit as the interior is very eclectic and there’re multiple open-air platforms where you can either sit on the floors or at tables while dining. Plus, there’s good live jazzy music and Apsara dance on some nights. After dinner we just chilled out for hours and didn’t wanna leave. We checked out the Night Market (recently opened) and then headed back to our respective guesthouses. Had to wake up at 4am the next day to catch the sunrise!
