Cambodia 3: Siem Reap

Angkor Wat 

23 – 27 Dec 2017
The next leg of our travel to Siem Reap was on a local bus; not as fast as the express minivans and therefore slightly more enjoyable. As we waited for our bus, I snapped the Kompong Cham morning traffic.              
           

The bus delivered us in one piece to Siem Reap and we checked into the Mad Monkey hostel. Siem Reap was quite a shock to us after the calmness of Sen Monorom. This is a major tourist destination packed with westerners and seemingly a million mopeds and remorq motos - the bigger “tuk tuk” with a trailer attached to a moped.

Christmas Eve
We rented mountain bikes and a lovely guide called Bunny from Camouflage Bikes and had a wonderful day touring the unbelievable temples. Everyone knows that Angkor is an amazing site, and top tourist destination. However, what you’re not prepared for is the unbelievable scale, incredible carved detail on every stone, and that Angkor Wat is just the largest religious monument in the world out of 1,000 temples (from a mere pile of bricks to the statuesque) spread across almost 1,000 sqkm. We did 41km on the bikes in one hot day, visiting just four temples. I’ll try and keep this brief...

Angkor Wat
The most famous. Built in the 12th century with 2 shifts of 150,000 workers and 6,000 elephants!

The East facade - or the “back entrance” where we began our tour.  

Temple inside the Esplanade

View from the Third Level towards the Main Entrance 

West facade/ main entrance 

Suryavarman II - in the incredible 800m of bas-reliefs

Bayon
The state temple inside the 10sqkm Angkor Thom site, with 54 Gothic towers and 216 gargantuan smiling faces.

 

Ta Prohm
Amazing trees growing through the temple structure

 

Ta Nei
Probably our favourite of the day because we arrived as it was closing at 5pm and had it virtually to ourselves.

Annie hitches a lift with Bunny!

Moat at Angkor Thom entrance

Christmas Day
Jess, Jake & Tom got up at 5am to go on a bird watching tour by jeep to Kabal Spean and then Phnom Kuelen and had a great day with a lovely guide.

Ben, Annie and I were collected at 0730 for a Countryside Cooking course, a not-for-profit venture currently supporting 83 local kids. We started off with a fascinating tour of a local market on the outskirts of Phnom Phen, where our guide and founder Ben gave a detailed explanation of how the market operated, and the core ingredients of Khmer cooking.

We completed our tour by eating crickets and diving  beetles!

We were then taught how to make fresh spring rolls with tamarind dipping sauce, the classic Khmer dish of chicken amok and finished off with banana & sticky rice.  Great fun, interesting and delicious!

Garlic crush Cambodian style!

[Note: I think video links only work when viewing full blog on tablet or PC??]

That afternoon, Ben Annie and I grabbed a tuk-tuk 30 mins out to Ta Som  – a relatively quiet temple, with a huge tree growing out of the eastern entrance. We had a relaxed couple of hours  drawing and then made our way back to meet up with the twitchers after their 11 hour tour.

Ta Som by Annie

 

Ta Som by Ben 

We had a tasty Christmas dinner in a nicely lit wooden restaurant near our hostel; thank you Mum & Dad!  With the change leftover we headed to Psar Chaa for Fried Ice Cream, and then onto a happening rooftop bar complete with skytrackers and Cambodian singers. One dodgy cocktail later and time for bed! Merry Christmas.

The notorious “Pub Street”!

Boxing Day
I rented a mountain bike the previous evening in order to go and see dawn over Angkor Wat. Luckily the hostel diehards woke me returning from Pub Street before my alarm clock at 0430.  With headtorch on full power, it was a fun 30 minute blast out, overtaking the steady stream of tuk-tuks.  There were over 1,000 people lined up five deep around the small lake in front of Angkor Wat – with countless flashes going off as the dawn failed to generate much colour.

Whilst I wouldn’t recommend this dawn pilgramage because of the crowds, going early is a good way to do your 2nd visit to Angkor, in the cool of the morning and without the hordes.

I pedalled on to Bayon, which was already busy, but still way less than our first day.

I cycled the 12km back to the hostel in steady drizzle, grabbed coffee with the others, and then we took 2 tuk-tuks out to Prean Khan which is like a tardis, with a relatively simple facade but an incredibly intricate layout with numerous doorways on symmetrical corridors. This temple has been undergoing extensive renovation so is in relatively good condition.

[ BEN ANIMATION  to come]

If you’ve got to the end of this post - well done! It’s been tough to edit the four days down to this few pics. Will try and keep next ones more succinct.

We have loved our time in Siem Reap and would definitely return to explore the further flung temples, but would choose quieter accommodation!  Early night ready for our boat at 0730 to Battambang.