We caught our bus in the morning from Phomn Penh, having booked our tickets with a local restuarant. They were still asleep when we arrived, so there was quite a bit of confusion about where our connecting Tuk Tuk to the bus station was. Eventually it transpired that it wasn't turning up, so the restuarant owner had to pay another nearby tuk tuk to take us. We'd ordered a sandwich for breakfast, but he also gave us free bottles of water and apples and bananas as compensation for the confusion!
Eventually we were on our bus from Phomn Penh, but it soon transpired that we were on the bounciest seats on the whole bus. The roads in Cambodia are bumpy enough, but we bounced twice as high as everyone else for the duration of the 6 hour journey... Andrew's previous blog entry gives you the opportunity to experience it for yourself!
Arriving in Siem Reap we were taken to our guesthouse for free by tuk tuk, and once we arrived it became clear that our tuk tuk driver did our trip for free cos he wanted the job of being our tuk tuk for the temples. We didn't want to make a deal there and then, but said we could meet him the next morning to discuss it.
After settling into our room (fan, hot water and cable tv all for $8 per night!), we went in search of some food. We found a good Khmer restuarant and had some pumpkin and corgette lemongrass soup, and a pumpkin and vegetable curry. We had a drink in the local area, but it was really really touristy, with loads of westerners everywhere. I was beginning to wonder where the locals hung out, but later in the week we walked further afield and found some local markets and residential areas.
The next day we decided not to start our temple tour straight away as we needed to figure out how we were going to fit the rest of our tour of s/e asia in 1 month. It felt like being at work again, as we put together a spreadsheet itinerary, and printed out lots of info on trains connecting Bangkok to Singopore. We're going to Laos and northern Thailand before we head down to Malaysia by train, but I'm looking forward to travelling by train again when we get there.
We went to a local restaurant for lunch as they did a cooking course we wanted to do so we thought we'd try some of their food first. It was all really tasty, the most interesting dish being Khmer curry Cannelloni! We decided to do the Khmer cooking course there, as a break in between our 3 days of temple adventures.
The next day we headed of to the temples. We ended up using the third tuk tuk guy we found as our first two had 'dissapeared' when they came to collect us at our guesthouse. We realised that some tuk tuk drivers that sat and waited in our guesthouse lobby must have been telling them to get off their patch and then try to take their business. We ignored these chancers though and walked down to the main street where we found our tuk tuk dirver Chat who aggreed to take us to see the temples for 3 days for $30. This seemed pretty reasonable as he was going to be our personal driver for the whole day each day.
To start with we saw temples from the Roulous group as they were the oldest, and then also saw the famous Ta Prohm where Tomb Raider was filmed. This was heaving with tourists though so was asked Chat to take us to some quieter temples, which were much more peaceful and reflective. The next day we paid Chat a bit more and went further afield to Banteay Srei which had the most elaborate carvings ( but still loads of tourists) and then Kbal Spean which was a temple but a series of carvings under the river, and on the nearby rocks. There were lots of linga fertility symbols as the water was deemed to become more fertile as it flowed over the carvings, and then it would make the land and fields it flowed down to more fertile. It was one of the most beautiful spots we visited as the walk up though the forest was beautiful, and the river also turned into a small waterfall at the end. There weren't too many other tourists as it was quite a hike up to the top of the mountian, so only a few people made it!
That evening we bumped into some of our friends that we had met on our snorkelling island tour in Sihanoukville, and we ended up meeting up with them each evening for the rest of our stay in Siem Reap, exploring different restuarants and bars in the area.
The cookign course was really fun, and we visited the market first to see all the ingredients we would be using, most of which I had never seen before. I will upload photos of all this when I get the chance! I made a mango salad, and Andrew a spicy shrimp salad. Then I made Khmer Fried chicken with coconut milk, peanuts and lemongrass paste, served with Pak choi. Andrew made a traditional Khmer soup with vegetables and spices. We also had a pumpkin stuffed with custard for desert, so we were stuffed by the end of it!
Our final day of temples started with Angkor Wat at sunrise, then the Angkor Thom complex and then 3 temples which were completely desserted with no one else there. We had lots of fun feeling like we were exploring them for the first time, and took some cool indiana jones style videos.
Helen x
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