Wat's At Angkor?

We had a long and somewhat eventful bus trip to Siem Reap. The bus we first got on was travelling all the way to Phnom Penh so we changed buses at the lunch stop. Except that we had to wait 2.5 hours for the second bus. It was a chance for us to talk to some locals who were shocked when we told them how much we would pay (in USD) for the simple and cheap lunch we had just eaten. Then we said "each" and they excitedly chattered to each other in Khmer almost fainting at the idea of paying $5 for fried rice (we paid $2 total!).

Our new bus broke down and the driver didn't know what was wrong. After numerous buses and packed minivans were waved down and drove away, finally another bus took all of the passengers. That is when we witnessed an awesome lightning storm (no rain) that went on for the rest of the trip. Finally, we arrived at the home of Angkor, 12 hours after we left Kratie.

We arrived at the bus terminal in Siem Reap to a fight over which tuk-tuk driver should take us to a guest house. We solved the problem by choosing one that took us to Garden View Guesthouse for free. The guesthouse gave us a room with ensuite for $5 the first night, and we down-graded to a $3 shared bathroom for the next night. A big draw card was the free internet they offered.

Around the corner from Garden View was a night food market. Our excitement about cheap and interesting food waned after we discovered all stalls offered the same boring menu of fried rice and noodle soup for around R4000 (NZ$1 = R3,000). We finished off the night with a pint of Angkor beer, a little disappointing after the refreshing taste of Beer Lao.

On Friday we hired a bicycle ($2) from the guesthouse and rode out to the reason we were in Siem Reap - Angkor. We paid $40 for a 3-day pass after deciding one day wasn't enough. Angkor Wat was the first temple we visited. It was quite amazing walking over the bridge , through the huge gateway and getting that first sighting of the famous temple. It's hard to imagine it was smothered by forest not that long ago. The carvings were still obvious, and the towers rose up in the middle of the complex. It was strange to be clambering over something so old.

After a terrible lunch of expensive fried rice while avoiding the hundreds of kids trying to sell us water or jewellery, we rode our bikes into Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is an old city, most of which was made of wood so has rotted away, but the stone buildings remain. The first we visited will probably remain to us as the most interesting temple ever visited - Bayon. It was a place we felt like we would have loved to have discovered when we were kids, without the rest of the tourists. 54 towers rose into the sky, each with a serenely smiling face looking towards the north, south, east and west. There were rooms and stairs around every corner. And it was old. It hadn't been as extensively restored as Angkor Wat so has an element of adventure about it. By far our favourite temple.

Nearby Baphuon was under restoration and only open 7am-3pm, we'd just missed it. The Terrace of the Elephants right nest door was adorned with elephants (surprisingly enough!) at work and play. A very black and threatening looking cloud making its way towards us was enough for us to be convinced sunset over Angkor Wat could wait for another day, and instead we went back to the guesthouse for a beer and to watch Casino Royale - finally.

The bikes we'd hired on Friday weren't very good even though they were mountain bikes, so we found $1 bikes not too far away that worked much better. We picked up baguettes, bananas and jam at a market to eat during the day. The first temple we visited that day was Banteay Kdei. We found it rather uninteresting, nothing amazing to see, "just more ruins". Ta Phrom was much cooler. Trees had grown on walls and are still there. The tree roots look like big fat snakes crawling over the walls in an effort to reach the ground. Awesome.

Ta Keo was like a mountain in the middle of the plains, a pyramid we had to climb. Thankfully there was a staircase built for women, with wider steps. We visited another jungle overrun temple, Preah Khan, before climbing a hill to Phnom Bakheng, from where you can view Angkor Wat. It wasn't long before sunset, but we left early, not wanting to cycle through the dark. Hundreds of people were climbing the hill as we made our way down.

Back in town we found a small market and picked up a copy of Lonely Planet Vietnam for $4.

For our final day at Angkor, we awoke at 4:15am so we could ride (in the dark!) to Angkor Wat for sunrise. It was nice to ride in the cooler temperature at that time of the day. Crowds were crawling around the entrance to Angkor Wat, marvelling at the beautiful pink sky overhead. We had a couple more temples to visit before our bus at lunch. Inside Angkor Thom there was Phimeanakas and it was empty of people. The Terrace of the Leper King was the final site.