Land Mines, Temples And Cows

Ta Prohm
see all photos »

We flew into Siem Reap to avoid going through Phnom Pehn by bus as we heard phnom pehn was somewhat lawless and we only really wanted to see the temples of Angkor in the north.  So we flew into the airport on the most antique propeller driven plane ever.  The airport is finished largely in wood and looks kinda like a temple and has little ponds all around it, how cool is that!

The immediate impression upon flying over the country was that it was very rural and once we had landed and got our tuk tuk airport pick up it was apparent that the city was not very flush with cash to say the least and our hotel looked like it was in the middle of a shanty town.  Wooden buildings were next to big modern concrete ones and the road was just mud and water.

Temples, Temples, Temples

Ta Prohm
see all photos »

We got into the hotel which was ran by an elderly Korean couple who were really pleasant and helpful but the room wasn't the best.  An interesting "feature" of the bathroom was that there was a low wall adjoining next doors bathroom so any noises were shared happily with your neighbours.  There was blood on the sheets for the entire 3 night stay and our legs have been eaten by bugs which strangely appear only at night, around the feet area, our feet that are in the bed at night, this particular hostels bed.  Not that i am saying of course that it was the hostel bed where we got them from of course, nope must be from somewhere else.

Ta Prohm
see all photos »

We couldn't see much of a nightlife in Siem Reap and there are lots of kids begging but this place seems to be just starting out with a tourist infrastucture there were internet places and a few restaurants.

What outweighs all these deficiencies is that the people are lovely and friendly and the temples around Siem Reap and the floating village on the Tonle Sap river are absolutely magnificent.

We hired a friendly tuk tuk driver for three days and visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta prohm, Bantay Srei and tons more temples.  The Khmer temples date from 790 ad to 1307 ad and are spread out over a vast area as different kings ruled from different places around Angkor.  There are big differences in styles depending on which period the temple are from.  The first ones we saw were in Eastern Angkor from 1180 Ad to 1220 ad.  These temples were found in the middle of the jungle which has just grown into the structures which give them such an odd look especially the banyan and fig trees which just wrap themselves round the buildings.  It was here that the Tomb Raider film was made apparently.

Ta Prohm
see all photos »

I got such an archiological horn walking around these places.  You would see the big structures and when you got up close to them the little details were amazing.  A load of the temples are Hindu influenced and others Mahayana Buddist and you could see tons of hindu stuff like vishnu and Shiva the destroyer kicking the shit out of everything with his dance of destruction ... It just rocked, in a raiders of the lost ark way.