LlamaBlog

After a few days in Krabi Town we flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia on Monday 18th April.

We’re staying at the Two Dragons Guesthouse in the town, an air-con double room with bathroom (and hot water!) costs $12/night.

On Tuesday we set off at 9am with our driver, Mr Han, on his tuk-tuk (actually a trailer attached to a moped) to see the temples of Angkor.

We bought a 3-day pass for $40 each and headed first for Angkor Thom, a ruined city and temple complex. Words can’t really describe the sites, at least not in the time I’ve got fight the nasty keyboard in this internet cafe. A few hours there, a rest at the guesthouse and then on to the famed Angkor Wat with time to look around before sunset.

Sadly, sunset wasn’t visible due to cloud cover but we had a good look round the complex. Didn’t get many photos at that point as the camera battery went flat.

Next morning we set out at the unfeasibly early time of 5am, in order to catch sunrise. This time the sunrise was visible and we had a fully charged camera.
Great pictures and the site was relatively quiet. By 7:30am we had seen most of what we wanted there and went for breakfast at a nearby cafe.

For the rest of the day we toured a number of other temple complex, including the overgrown Ta Phrom which we both liked.

For sunset we headed up a hill close to Angkor Wat to a temple complex where we joined crowds of tourists watching the sun go down.

Today we had a later start, out by 7am for an hours drive out to another temple (we have an excellent guide book with all the names etc but I don’t have it on me) which had amazing detailed stone carvings but much of the site was sadly roped off due to renovation work. Driving along we got a chance to glimpse the rural life of Cambodia, the local houses etc which was fascinating (and a break for temple-tramping!).

Heading back to Siem Reap we visited another three temples, all very different, before finally getting back to the guesthouse just after noon.

The temples are amazing, Angkor Wat is a huge complex and the amount of human effort put into the construction and decoration of all the sites is staggering. Definitely worth the $40 entrance fee.

We have loads of photos, as you’d imagine, but haven’t found anywhere suitable to upload them from yet. They may have to wait until we’re in Bangkok again in a couple of weeks time.

Tomorrow we have a day in Siem Reap, and on Saturday we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos, via Bangkok again.