Hey folks,
So I arrived in Siem Reap on Wednesday and took the recommendation of a friend for a place to stay, the Siem Reap Hostel, a great backpacker joint with air-conditioned dorms, an indoor pool, good food, cheap drinks, a DVD player with a ton of movies, massages, a pool table and foosball... pretty much all the amenities you could hope for. A friend of the woman who owned my hostel in Phnom Penh picked me up in a tuk-tuk from the bus station and told me he would be my driver for the entirety of my stay for whatever I wanted to do and that I could decide a price at the end. Very trusting of him but I'm guessing he's happy to have the work. After all, Siem Reap is a city where tuk-tuk drivers are a dime a dozen!
I spent an hour settling in and then my driver picked me up and took me to Angkor Wat to see the sunset. After purchasing a ticket for three days, we headed in and I got my first far-off glimpse of the magnificent, ancient temples, very impressive even from a distance in their stature! We drove further down the road past Angkor Wat and I climbed a hill to see the sunset from Bakheng Temple, one of the highest viewpoints for the popular activity. There were at least a hundred people at the top and it was scorching hot but I got a good spot on the edge and enjoyed the sun going down over a vast landscape of foliage, fields, and flowing rivers. When I returned to the hostel, I got talking with a couple of guys at the bar and we headed out together to check out Pub Street, the popular place for people my age to go out for a good time and plenty of drink specials. After a night of margaritas, dancing and very loud music, I contentedly headed home to sleep in.
The next day, I took a break day to relax at the hostel and recuperate, tired from a late night and from all the transit from the past few weeks. But at night, I headed down the road to the local orphanage for a dance recital performance, food, and refreshments. The orphanage was quite sad, as the size of it and the living conditions for the children are quite poor. However, the kids seemed so incredibly happy and they put on a hell of a show, with a mixture of traditional dances and hip-hop mixed in. Once again, I have to mention that Cambodia kids are some of the most friendly youngsters I have ever met and they invited all the audience on stage at the end for a communal dance. It was a great cultural experience and I'm really glad I got the chance to do something different!
On day three, I had my first full day of temple exploration. I got up at the ungodly hour of 430AM and headed to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. It was very busy there despite how early it was but I managed to get a good spot again and took in the first rays of sunshine while snapping some great photos. Afterwards, I hired a guide who took me through the epic Angkor Wat Temple for an hour and a half, explaining who the carvings represented on the walls, figures like Vishnu and Krishna, and also giving cool facts about how they constructed the temple itself. It took 37 years, 30000 people and 5000 elephants to put together the massive stone temple but it shows. Its size and beauty is really unparalleled compared to any other temples I have seen and it is intricate in its wall carvings as well. Next I headed to two other main temples that were also very impressive, Bayon and Ta Prohm. Bayon is a very old-looking temple that has something in the neighbourhood of 50 huge stone carvings of faces and it was one of my favourites. Ta Prohm is a jungle temple where the trees mingle with the man-made stonework and it was the site of the filming of the first "Tomb Raider" film with Angelina Jolie. It's funny how its name has pretty much changed to the Tomb Raider temple now, much like James Bond Island and Maya Bay which was simply called "The Beach". American films dictate tourism over here whenever possible and tourists eat it right up... I saw a few smaller temples as well before heading back to the hostel for a rest for a few hours, exhausted from my early morning wake-up call and seven hours of exploring temples in the 37 degree heat! But in the afternoon, I headed back out and saw three more temples on the outskirts of Angkor Wat. Two of them were quite dull and unexciting but the third was quite impressive and luckily it was the last one, making it worth the trip...
Today, I headed to another slew of temples, bringing my total up to 15 and ending my Angkor Wat expedition. I am officially all templed out! Banteay Sray, a 20km drive from Angkor Wat was worth the journey, however, a temple known as being smaller and housing the most intricate red sandstone carvings in Cambodia, and also considered to be the temple most popular with the aristocratic population. It was very busy also, and like all temples, there were a ton of people haggling me while I walked to and from the temple, desperate to sell me postcards, paintings, food, drink, bracelets, or guidebooks. This part of my time in Siem Reap has been a little difficult to adjust to, mainly because Laos was laid back and I got used to not having to deal with the haggling. But in Siem Reap, a tourist haven, there are literally hundreds of hawkers with extortionist prices, and it was pretty tiresome by the 15th hour of my expedition. I am looking forward to a life free from "Excuse me sir"s when I return home to Vancouver!
Unfortunately, in the afternoon, after many days of little sleep and walking in the heat, I succumbed to my first cold/flu of my backpacking experience and it has been awful! I lay in bed for several hours this afternoon, unable to sleep and suffering from a bad fever. Thankfully, I picked up cold medication this morning before the temples when I felt the starts of something coming on so it has made me feel a bit better. I can only hope that it doesn't last long and I board my flight fully healthy and happy...
So that's it for my travels! Tomorrow will be a recovery day from this illness and then I head to Bangkok the next day to have one full day in the metropolis before I go home. It's hard to believe that my nine month adventure is almost over and all the planning that I spent so much time on over the past one and a half years has come to fruition. As this blog has been solely for the purpose of my travels, it will soon be coming to an end so I thank you all for reading and hope you have enjoyed it. See you all soon!
Ciao for now,
Max
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