Angkor what did you say? Siem Reap...
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2009
1
94
151
Trip End
Dec 01, 2011
Where I stayed
Golden Fish Hostel
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday 13th February 2011
Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia (By Danielle)
Siem Reap Highlight of Cambodia!
Another bus day! We got picked up from the hostel and brought to the bus station where we got on our local bus to Siem Reap. Nice trip – not too long, enough air con to make it comfy – what more can you ask for!
Arriving in Siem Reap we had sourced a few spots in town but the bus dropped us outside the main centre – so all the tuk tuks descended on us, we had no choice but to go with one of them – on one condition that we use him tomorrow for our trip to Angkor!! We'll see about that!
We found a nice cheapie hostel Golden Fish ($6) really close to Pub Street (the main strip of bars and restaurants). Once we had dropped off our bags and showered off for the second time today (so humid and sweaty here) we headed off for a wander of the local town – so built up, pubs, bars and restaurants side by side with their music competing to be loudest! Then we walked down The Alley, such a cute lane, with more upmarket restaurants and cafes and really nice fair trade handicraft stores. It had a modern hippie chic vibe to it complete with a fortune teller shop. Then there was the triangle shaped central stall area where all the stalls and local trolley dinners set up – there were so many stalls all with yummy local Khmer dishes. In the center of the triangle all the plastic chairs and tables are mixed so you can dine there or on the outside along the curb plenty of people watching! Siem Reap has so many massage parlors and fish massage (you stick your feet in a tank filled with the cleaner fish and they feast on your dead skin and sweaty feet… eh no thanks!). There are also two large markets, one open during the day filled with everything, you name it it’s there. Then the night market is closer to our hostel – cool place to potter around in after dinner – they have $1 foot and back rub there… row of seats are always full…we must test it out….
Rob and I ate at one of the stalls before heading to Blue Pumpkin, this fab dessert café full of ice creams, pastries, breads and cakes! After our treat we found a massage parlor that would give us the 'works’ for our feet at an alright price. We had our feet scrubbed, scrapped, polished, massaged and nails pampered (well I got the nails coloured Rob kept it simple with no colour – maybe next time). Our feet were baby soft when we left – ready to climb the temples at Angkor. We then headed to the sports bar to watch the rugby, Ireland played France in the Six Nations, great game, close but pity we lost it!!
Day 95
Monday 14th February 2011
Siem Reap, Cambodia (By Rob)
Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!
Today was supposed to be the fantastic romantic sunrise of Angkor Wat; instead we got a cloudy back drop with hundreds of tourists around us!! We got a tuk tuk at 5am to make sunrise at 6am. We thought we were going to be the first ones there, but when we arrived at the ticket office we were nowhere near alone, hundreds of people were up early to get the magnificent site in. Tickets were $40 for 3 days use, entrance to all of the temples and national park. We had to get our photo taken for the tickets and Kev thought it would be a good idea to make a funny face! I was up first pulled a horrible face and the ticket was hilarious!! Kev went up and I thought he did nothing, but he made himself cross-eyed, the picture was so funny.
When entering Angkor Wat, a Cambodian who worked there gave us some incense to place in front of the Buddha before we entered. Showing us how to pray by bowing 7 times and rubbing the Buddha’s foot and then touch your head. I though, God this guy is very nice to be doing this!! Until he pulled away a piece of cloth at the Buddha’s feet, where a $10 note sat!! "You must pay" ha ha we were done!! Michelle gave him $0.30 and walked off!!
Even though the sunrise was disappointing the building itself was superb, to think they made this 1000 years ago was mind blowing. Once the sun came up we wondered around starting from the back and working our way down to dodge the crowd. We took a few funny photos on the way; the camera loved Kev and Kev was loving the camera!! He kept asking to take his photo!!
Next stop was Angkor Thom, a city of temples; the main one Bayon had 54 gothic towers which held 216 different smiling faces glaring down. This was my favourite of the bunch, the detail in all of the rocks were amazing and how they got them up so high, no one will ever know! Even the walkway walls (Elephant Terrace) to each of the temples were carved out with detailed elephants and angry faces to protect them from evil. At this point Michelle (small bladder) decided to go to the toilet and ended up getting lost for an hour, searching for her in the tuk tuk we finally found her with Kev!! Typical!!
I never knew there were so many temples in Angkor Wat, we must have seen 12 so far and there are lots more. Some of the temples have trees growing through the actual building, with the bark covering the hole of the roof, craziest looking thing I have seen. We messed around in Ta Prohm taking cool photos with all the roots and over grown jungle creeping over the temple. Our driver dropped us off for lunch at this crap place just because he got free lunch there. Way over priced and the food wasn’t even good.
Everywhere you go there are kids trying to sell you things from water, homemade instrument’s, books and bracelets and most of them don’t take no for an answer especially if you go over and have a look yourself, they expect you to buy. We had 5 kids follow us around for 20min bugging us saying “1 dollar” every 2 seconds!! Very annoying but sad all the same.
We were all dying because we have been up since 5am and it was coming close to sunset, so we decided to hold off on the sunset and do it tomorrow, plus Kev and myself had nothing planned for Valentine’s Day so we were on a mission to impress!! The tuk tuk driver dropped us back, $12 for the day, can’t go wrong with that, $3 each!! We all went for a well-earned nap and reenergized for “The Temple Restaurant” to have a romantic dinner for 4!! They had traditional band and dancers performing, Khmer style dancing with cool costumes and makeup. Wouldn’t call it the most romantic night of my life but it was fun and the food was good!!
Day 96
Tuesday 15th February 2011
Siem Reap, Cambodia (By Danielle)
Sun Set at Phnom Bakheng… or not!!
We took the morning off to do our own things; I still like to get up early so Rob and I went for a nice long breakfast – Poor Rob though, his butt plugs finally wore off and a build up from the few days made its way out… ha ha!! After his ordeal, we wandered the town walking through the market and of course I tried on another few pairs of those baggy pants – but still Rob hates them…
After lunch the 4 of us rented bikes and cycled to Angkor to watch the sun set. We cycled to Bayon (the temple with the many faces) then Kev went off to check out this massive seated Buddha Statue where a monk struck up a conversation with him, the friendly chap showed Kev where they eat and lived…
We went back to Phnom Bakheng; the super popular spot for sun set had loads of snap happy tourists climbing the steps to the top of the hill. There we climbed more steps of the 5 leveled, 7 tiered temple and grabbed a good spot to view the sun going down over Angkor Wat. But with the clouds thick in the sky, we only saw it half go down, so after all our effort getting up there for sun rise we left before it had even gone down, ha ha! We are not really lucky with the sun rise and sun set here!!
That night Rob and I ate in another stall restaurant while Kev and Michelle went to a restaurant on Pub Street, Michelle doesn’t like the stall food over here…but we are yet to change her! I was in the mood for Thai food – so I got a tasty Pad Thai Dish and Rob got a typical Khmer Dish – kinda mild curry taste. We wandered the night market where I found the matching scarf that Alyson bought me when she was here 2 years ago…then we heading back to Pub Street to find Kev and Michelle.
Day 97
Wednesday 16th February 2011
Siem Reap, Cambodia (By Rob)
Adios Kev & Michelle……
Today was our last day in Angkor Wat and with Kev and Michelle, we were meeting up with the same driver to bring us around the big loop of the national park. Michelle took the morning off so it was just the three of us. We went to meet our driver but it was a different one, he was busy and sent his friend to look after us. Pity because our original driver was full of information and knew a lot about the history of Angkor Wat. Let’s see how his friend does!!
First stop was Preah Khan Temple, another monster temple with a lot of damaged walls and statues. If you stand at the entrance and look down the hall you can see straight through the temple into the gardens, 800metres long! Really cool sight. We then wondered onto Preah Neak Pean Temple, this small temple has 4 small pools surrounding it with an amazing structure right in the center. Locals try and become very friendly with you telling us about the history of the Temple, but it doesn’t come at a cheap price, they basically follow you around the temple telling you all interesting facts, and then ask you for money at the end. One of them tried it on us but I told him to beat it!! Next stop Ta Som Temple then Eastern Mebon Temple then Pre Rup Temple and finally Srang Temple. After all of these we were all templed out for the year, so we said good bye to the annoying kids selling $1 fruit and we made our way back to the hostel after our last day in Angkor Wat. When we finally stopped the driver thought we were born yesterday, trying to charge us $18 for 4 hours work!! We gave him $6 and a pat on the back, trust me this is a good price, some locals only earn $2 a day. Plus he was crap with no knowledge on the Temples at all!
We all went for lunch while Michelle went for Breakfast! We found a great spot where they gave you a foot message for $2 for 30mins, it was amazing. We tried to look for a blind message (blind person messages you) but were out of luck, they are supposed to be amazing at it as they can’t see but have a sensitive touch. I organized with our hostel to go and visit an orphanage school called Mr. Ross’s. We brought pencils, pens, copy books and playing balls for all of them as a present. When we got there the kids were so cute asking us our names and how old we were and where we came from, they were so interested. When Danielle said I am 25, they all said wow you’re so old!! Mr. Ross himself was there and showed us around, there were 3 classes with around 40 kids per class. They ranged from 4 to 14 year olds; he introduced all 4 of us to the class and told us to teach them for 2 hours!! Funny thing was he looked at me first to step up in front of 40 kids to teach them simple English sentences!! Never thought I could be a teacher but I actual enjoyed teaching them because they were all so interested and loved having us there. But the noise of 40 kids screaming out an answer wouldn’t push me towards becoming a teacher. After I was done it was Kev’s go to teach them simple math’s, they were all very clever getting all the answer’s right! Then Danielle and Michelle had a go teaching them all the different types of fruits. We ran out of things to do until they all shouted up” hang man”!! So we let them play hang man until school was finished. It was a great experience and made me want to do more volunteer work in the future.
It was our last night with Kev and Michelle so we saw this fancy food stall place yesterday and said Michelle might like this, so we brought them to it and she loved it saying it was the best food she has had all week! Finally, but it is a bit late don’t you think?!!! We finished our amazing day off in Blue Pumpkin where Kev ordered “Death by chocolate”!!!! He did look pretty sick after it!! Well what a 2 weeks it has been with Kev and Michelle, they are off to Phuket tomorrow while we are off to Koh Chang, going our separate ways. Enjoy the rest of your trip and hope you guys settle well in Australia, no matter where it is! (Danielle – Bye guys! Have great trip…so fun travelling with you two!)
Comments
Just had a feast of a read and view of all photos right up to what you were loading when we were skyping. WOW so much, amazing colours, sites & people - WOW. When you look at slide show you cannot leave comments as you can do when you view individually? Left some anyway? Keep trekking
Hey Robbie and Danielle,
Just had a bit of a look at the pictures and stories of your latest adventures. You kids sound like you are having a ball! I especially like the bits about Mr Ross' orphanage. I always said you'd be a great teacher, Robbie.
Vision's not the same without you but at least I can follow your travel stories until you come back . . .you are coming back?
Ah Anto. great to hear from ya. Glad you like the blog. hope you are having a great summer and living the dream. Might be coming back in 2 months, we will see!!!! Watch this space!!