The Angkor Temples

Location: Siem Reap
Country: Cambodia

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Bangkok was great. I ended up spending a week there and I have no idea where the time went.
The guesthouse I stayed in (Green House) was brilliant; it had such a good atmosphere.
I met loads of really nice travelers, very different, and from my point of view, much nicer than the type of people I met in India.
I did no tourist things at all, apart from a boat ride on the river, which I basically did just to get away a bit from the noise (didn't work), Bangkok seems to be forever noisy, no matter what time of day or night.
The only other time I left the Khaosan was to go to a film – King Kong, I enjoyed it, thought it was good entertainment.
Most of the time I just hung round the guesthouse, chatting with people, watching films, enjoying the good food and drinking some of the infamous Thai whiskey.
It was just what I needed after India.

I was really unsure about where I would be going next. In theory I wanted to go to Cambodia-Vietnam-Laos, but I wasn’t getting too far with finding someone to go with, and I did not fancy embarking upon Cambodia alone.
I changed my plans about every 10 minutes and just could not make my mind up.
Then I came across this Israeli girl – Yafit, who had come for just over a month and wanted to go to Cambodia and Vietnam.
I have to admit that it wasn't her striking personality that made me want to go with her (she is quite a strange one), but she was just so organized. She had gathered all the necessary information, knowing exactly where to go and what to do.
Seeing that I had no information what so ever, the only things I knew about these countries is that I wanted to visit them, it was very appealing to hook up with her.

On Wednesday we got a bus from the Khaosan to the Cambodian border. The road from the border to our first stop – Siem Reap is known to be really bad. Apparently some airline is bribing the government not to pave a new road there, so that their business won't be hurt. It is supposed to be a 3 hour drive, and some people have reported it taking as long as 10 hours on the bus and arriving with terrible back pains.
Hence, we decided to get a cab with another couple, it didn't even work out much more expensive.
I don't know if they have done up the roads lately or if I am just immune from my time in India, but I didn't think the ride was bad at all.



The reason for coming to Siem Reap, or actually the reason for coming to Cambodia is vising the temples of Angkor.
I will use the words of the Lonely Planet here:
"Prepare for divine inspiration! The temples of Angkor, capital of Cambodia's ancient Khmer empire, are the perfect fusion of creative ambition and spiritual devotion. The Cambodian god-kings of old each strove to better their ancestors in size, scale and symmetry, culminating in the world's largest religious building – Angkor Wat, and one of the world's weirdest – the Bayon. The hundreds of temples surviving today are but a sacred skeleton of the vast political, religious and social centre of an empire that stretched from Burma to Vietnam, a city that, at its zenith, boasted a population of one million when London was a scrawny town of 50,000."

We have spent 3 days going round looking all the different temples of Angkor, and it has been quite amazing. I feel the pictures I took don't do it justice, but they can say more than my words.












Today I also went on a hot-air balloon to see the view from above, which was spectacular. Though any excuse to go up in the balloon would have been good for me.



Everyone warns you that Cambodia is hard to travel in and that the people are very annoying and harass you all the time. I guess I have my time in India to thank, as I find it quite easy to get along here and haven't found the people to bothersome at all.
So far, I feel quite comfortable here, I felt a bit nervous before coming, but I see now that it is fine.
It is advised not to walk around at night; the people here are so poor that there is some crime, so I do listen to that advice. It is fine really, 'cause after walking round temples all day, I haven't the energy to walk round at night in any case.

The currency here is Real, but they seems to charge you in US dollars everywhere, I guess 'cause their local currency is so bad.

You do see quite a few amputees, victims of landmines around. It is suggested that you do not veer from the known path here, as there are still millions of landmines around. That advice I also make sure to follow.

In all, I would say that Cambodia feels as touristic as the next place and so far I have encountered no special difficulty traveling here.

Tomorrow I am off by boat to the capitol – Phnom Penh.