Flying in to Siem Reap was a good idea. A one hour flight found us at Siem Reap airport. Andy refused to get a moto to the guesthouse, so a taxi it had to be. Mind you it was a nice comfortable ride with a very friendly driver; The airport is a reasonable distance from the town.
So we arrived at the Ivy guesthouse. This is another really nice place with a big bar area, friendly staff and the 2nd worst pool table we’ve come across so far. It also has a really nice balcony on the first floor with sofas, a TV and hammocks. First order of the day was to have a beer, of course, then a quick exploration of the town, which resulted in finding an ATM and an internet cafe.
The Ivy guesthouse also rented out bicycles for $2/day. This is the strange thing about Cambodia. They do have their own currency – Cambodian Riel – which generally exchanges for 4000 riel to the US dollar, but all prices and transactions are in US dollars. Riel are only really used for parts of dollars. Anyway, back to the point. Siem Reap is the base for all visits to the Angkor region – often described as the 8th wonder of the world, largely because Cambodia’s tourist industry didn’t mobilise enough people to vote for it when the the 7 wonders people made the new 7 wonders of the world list. I’ll check out some of the other wonders later and let you know if they deserved to get on ahead of Angkor 
.
I’ve gone off-topic again. We decided to hire the bikes for the following day and resolved to make it to Angkor Wat for sunrise. Angkor Wat is unusual for temples in this part of the world in that it runs from west to east instead of east to west. This makes it a great place to watch the sunrise as the sun comes up directly over the temple. To make it for sunrise we were going to have to leave the guesthouse at 4:45am, so it was a short visit to the Angkor What? bar that evening for a quick drink, then an early night.
The following day, we actually did it! Out of bed at 4:30, quick dress and hop on the bikes at 4:45 to get to Angkor Wat and beat the crowds! The bikes didn’t have lights, but we were assured that it would be fine – there are streetlights all the way. This is a lie. The streetlights stop on the edge of Siem Reap and it’s pretty dark the rest of the way. This wasn’t a problem though, due to the constant stream of tuk-tuks passing us and lighting up the road. So much for beating the crowds! We had to stop on the way to buy a ticket at a ticket booth on the way too. It was lucky we saw all the tuk-tuks heading in there – security guys check them at many of the temples and the booth is quite a distance from the temple. Would have been really gutting to cycle all the way there, only to have to cycle back to the ticket booth and back to Angkor Wat again.
So we arrived at Angkor Wat with plenty of time before the sunrise. A nice man directed us to the bike parking area with bars to chain it to. It turned out he wanted to sell us coffees, of course. A coffee wasn’t unwelcome at that time, although it did cost the princely sum of $1.
Angkor Wat itself is awe-inspiring. I believe it’s an ex-hindu temple, rededicated to Buddhism, but it looks like something between a palace and a mausoleum. It’s surrounded by a square moat, which is split into two to allow access from the front or back. We got some photos from outside the main gatehouse, then wandered into the inner courtyard to watch the sunrise over the temple itself, along with crowds of other people. Inside, the place looks like something out of a Tomb Raider game – it’s easy to see where a lot of the inspiration came from. I had a look for the puzzle you have to solve in order to open the gate to the underworld, but sadly I guess it must have worn away already.
After the sunrise we decided to start off exploring the outside wall. There’s a passage along the outside of the wall you can follow, so Andy and I started along the left hand side one. Something bizarre happened as we got close to the corner; Andy suddenly went a bit mental, threw his bottle of water to the ground and started thrashing around, before turning around and running in the opposite direction. At that point I felt a pain on my shoulder, so turned around and followed. After 20m or so Andy stopped, ripped off his t-shirt and started slapping at his body – he had a massive bite on his back. It seems we’d been attacked by a few very large biting insects – the size of dragons they were. Seriously I’m surprised they didn’t bite our heads off. The bites were quite big though, but they healed up after a few hours. At that point we decided to give up on this and go back inside the temple. Andy even debated paying someone a dollar or two to go back for his water.
Inside the temple is amazing, but words can’t do it justice. Which is why I took lots of photos!
After Angkor Wat we went up Phnom Bakheng hill to another temple, which was meant to have great views of Angkor Wat. The climb up the hill wasn’t too bad, but the steps up to the top of the temple were… testing! Each step is about 18 inches high and 5 inches wide, and most of them are crumbling. The view from the top was nice, but there were only a couple of spots you could actually see Angkor Wat from, and it’s pretty distant. The climb down from the temple was, if anything, even harder than the climb up.
We then headed into Angkor Thom, which contains a collection of temples. First up was Bayan, which is almost as impressive as Angkor Wat, although not on the same scale. The big thing here is all the pillars with a face carved into them. I guess it’s the face of Buddha. In the book “First they killed my father” by Loung Ung (it’s not a happy book, but essential reading if you’re going to Cambodia and you’re not already depressed) these are the faces she thought looked like her father. From Bayan along the Terrace of Elephants to Baphuon, which is also known as the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle. In the middle of the restoration effort, after much of the temple had been dismantled, the Khmer Rouge disaster hit and the plans for where all the pieces were meant to go were destroyed. After that came Phimeanakas, which is another interesting climb, then on to the Terrace of the Leper King, which has some interesting hindu carvings along the sides. Getting back on the bikes, we prepared to cycle out of the north gate to Preah Khan. Along the road we were passed by Ellen, who we’d met in Laos before, in a tuk-tuk. So we chased the tuk-tuk down the road and caught up with them at the temple. She’d met up with another dutch girl – Merell, so we explored the temple with them. Most of the temple is fairly unspectacular, although there are various artifacts, both hindu and buddhist along the way. The best is at the back though, where trees are literally growing on the walls. It’s a classic example of nature taking back over, as the roots grow around the walls and thicken, the temple is slowly being destroyed. Restoration work is underway to remove the trees and save the temple, however.
At this point it was time for lunch. We’d promised a woman earlier we’d be back to eat at her restaurant, so headed to her place. While waiting for our food we were surrounded by three kids trying to sell us things we didn’t want. After telling them to go away for 10 minutes or so, eventually we had to ignore them. The food was good, however.
We left Ellen and Merell behind at this point – they’d already been to our next stop, and headed back to Angkor Thom, then out of the east gate to Ta Phrom. On the way we stopped to take photos of Ta Keo, but felt too tired to climb it, so on to Wat Phrom. Nature is really taking hold here, and there are loads of trees growing out of the walls. Part of the first Tomb Raider film was filmed here.
By now it was 15:00 and we’d been on the road for 10 hours, so we started making our way back. The route took us around the back of Angkor Wat – time to drink water and eat chocolate before cycling back to the guesthouse. We met three English hippy girls on the balcony, who had apparently planned to spend 6 months travelling with just 1000 pounds each. Somehow they’d found room in this budget to buy a guitar with a custom-made case, and get tattoos. Nice girls but maybe a little misguided….
That evening Anja was due to arrive at 21:00 from the 4000 islands, so we reserved her a room and headed out to food and to the Angkor What? bar again. We were joined at our table by an Irish couple and an English couple, the English girl turned out to be a friend of Andy’s sister. Who’d've thunk it? Anja did arrive eventually, but not till about 1 in the morning. Apparently her minibuses battery died, so they had to push it, and then it ran out of petrol. Sounds like a bit of a nightmare journey – this is why we were glad we took the plane.
The next day we met up and took a tuk-tuk to Banteay Srei, followed by Angkor Wat again for sunset. A much easier day!
The day after that Andy and I were booked on a bus to Phnom Penh. Anja was going to stay another night in Siem Reap, before heading to Battambang, and it seemed likely we’d probably meet up in Sihanoukville after those.
