Siem Reap & Angkor (parts 1 & 2)

Our first day in Siem Reap was spent getting our bearings. We rented bicycles again, though the roads were a little bit more hectic here. Had a wander round and took it pretty easy. One of our friends, Laura, had been in Siem Reap for a few weeks so we met up for some dinner and a couple of drinks that evening on the appropriately named Pub Street.

The next day we headed out early on our bikes to Angkor:

Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations.

Or in other words - the place where they filmed Tomb Raider.

We bought a 3 day pass, on our first day we did the small circuit by bicycle. Here we visited Ta Prohm which is the ruins where quite a bit of Tomb Raider is shot. This is the one which has supposedly had the least resoration done on it, so there are giant trees growing out of the buildings all over the place - it's pretty crazy. The day was incredibly hot, so pretty hard work on our bikes despite the circuit not really being that big. Thankfully there were plenty of people desperate to sell us water, as well as postcards, bracelets and loads of other bits. Maddy left me alone at one point later in the day and I was coerced into buying ten postcards of Angkor (it was a dollar so pretty fair really!) by a devastatingly cute Kmer girl. So ten lucky people shall be receiving them shortly. We finished the day by climing up to the top of a massive hill to watch the sun set. It was cloudy and we couldn't see much so we headed off before the crowds and to try and get back while it was still light. On the way we were stopped by a policeman on the side of the road, got a little bit worried but it turned out he was stopping us to make sure our bags were tied securely around our handlebars because there are alot of thefts around here. Even the police (completely and utterly corrupt) are lovely here!

The day after we had a lazy day and got massages after feeling a bit achey from the workout. Early night was the order of the day for what we had planned next. We woke up just before 1am, headed out to the pub to watch the champions league final (Barca were amazing!) - a bit strange having just woke up to be in a bar with loads of people at the end of their nights. Then we went back to the guesthouse to meet our tuk-tuk driver who took us to Angkor for sunrise - it was fairly cloudy but still amazing. We did the grand circuit that day which was cool, but not as great as the day before we felt. Afterwards we were going to head to Angkor Wat and Angor Thom (the two main parts) but we both felt pretty tired from being up so early, and I had a migraine, so we headed home to catch up on some sleep. Tomorrow we have our last day there where we will check out Angkor Wat early, and then head on to do some of the main parts of Angkor Thom. It's so big though, a three day pass isn't nearly long enough to do everything.

A definite highlight so far.

There are 28 pages of photos on my flickr page from Angkor, and we have only done 2 out of 3 days so far. So if you are interested have a browse - if not, here are some (well, lots) of the better ones!