Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor

16 - 19 February 2017

Our first full day in Siem Reap so we got up and went wandering around the town. Mark had fond memories from our trip five years ago of 50 cent beer that came with free popcorn so he was on the hunt for more of the same. Perhaps we were on a fools errand. We did find a lunch place with a sign that there was free popcorn - but it never eventuated. 

Mark's cousin Hebe was arriving from Singapore to spend the next ten days with us in Cambodia so we headed back to our guest house to meet up with her. Once Hebe had safely arrived we went out for a drink and dinner. Dinner was awesome Indian food at the restaurant of a guy who had moved to Cambodia from Mumbai.

Sweet matching t-shirts team Gilmour

17 February 2017

Today we hired a tuk tuk and driver for the day to take us around the "small circuit" of temples at Angkor.
 

 

Over the course of the day we visited Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm.

While our driver waited for us he slept in a hammock in the back of his tuk tuk

 
Angkor Wat is the most famous and features on the Cambodian flag. The view as you walk on the bridge over the moat towards the temple is spectacular. 

Did some Apsaras escape from the temple?

From there we headed to Bayon. Bayon is within Angkor Thom - Great Angkor. There are five gates into the city - North, South, East, West and Ghost. Leading up to the gates there is a depiction of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk - a legendary tug of war between 54 demons and 54 gods. Then as you approach, the gate towers over you. Bayon temple itself was built by King Jayavarman VII and contains 216 faces. There is said to be some similarity between those 216 faces and the King.

Apparently none of us managed to photograh Bayon, so here's the gate instead.

After a late lunch we finished off the day at Ta Prohm - otherwise known as the Tomb Raider temple. The temple has been taken over by the jungle and is more like what those who discovered the temples would have found. The tree roots and branches made for good climbing for Mark and Hebe. I stayed on the ground level.

Hebe after (through much trial and error) finding a tree no one would yell at her for climbing

Adventurous Frank....

18 February 2017

Mark and I hired a scooter and went out exploring temples again while Hebe stayed at the guest house to work on her holiday homework and explore the town a bit.

Mark had done some research so we had the names of some off the beaten track temples to try and discover. We had success. At one of the temples there was just one other couple - although they were there with a massive camera set-up as they took photos for a virtual reality app they were creating. [He asked how we'd managed to find it as it was quite an "exclusive temple" -Mark]

The Northern gate - perhaps they knew what was to come

While we were at the North gate of Angkor Thom, Mark consulted his map app and confidently proclaimed that there was a path around the exterior of the city walls that would take us to the East gate. He set off on the scooter down the path for a few hundred metres and then came back confirming that it was indeed a path.  There was a good path for a while but then it deteriorated. I got off the back of the scooter and Mark rode on, bush bashing as he went. At one point we had to lift the scooter over a fallen tree. [At one point I had to wait for Frank to catch up and help lift the scooter over an especially large fallen tree with more undergrowth than usual around it. There were a lot more of them... - M]

As I was walking along the disappearing "path" there were some workmen on the top of the wall. They cheerfully yelled a hello to me. They then pointed towards Mark and the scooter and laughed hysterically amongst themselves. After a good twenty minutes Mark conceded - arguably we should have turned back at the point that the path deteriorated.... [On looking more carefully at the map afterwards, the path did indeed stop at about the time it became a mix of cow tracks and wishful thinking. Oops. -M]

The beginning of the path - I was too grumpy to take a picture of the path later on

After promises that there would be no further off roading we continue to explore the temples for the remainder of the day.

There were trees taking over temples

We climbed steep stairs

 

We sat thoughtfully in windows

19 February 2017

We headed out to a Mexican restaurant for a birthday breakfast. After breakfast we took the scooter and got further afield. We were headed for Beng Mealea - about one and a half hours out of Siem Reap. En route we stopped at Prasat Bakong. 

Beng Mealea was similar to Ta Prohm, overgrown with trees everywhere, but bigger and was said to have less tourists. We found it to have large Chinese tour groups that constantly yelled at each other. There were lots of no climbing signs and any [most, not all! -M] climbing Mark did manage to achieve resulted in eagle eyed tour guides or temple guards yelling at him to get down. 

From Beng Mealea we travelled to Banteay Srei. To avoid the main roads we worked out a route that would take us there through villages and farm land. I was navigating. I am not very good at navigating. We ended up on some very small sandy paths until eventually Mark took over navigation and got us back on a decent road. At least we were successful in our plan to stay away from the main road. 

Once we got there, Banteay Srei was my favourite of all of the temples. There were incredibly intricate carvings all over the temple. We were there right towards the end of the day and it was quiet. 

It's hard to capture how amazing this was

Once we were back in town we headed out for a birthday dinner. Five years ago, when we were in Siem Reap, our trip coincided with Mark's birthday. We went to a Swensens ice-cream parlour to get a giant ice-cream to celebrate his birthday, spending our last few dollars in the process. Since our trip this time coincided with my birthday we decided we should make a tradition of birthday ice-creams from Swensens. It was delicious!

Mark's ginormous ice-cream in foreground

After ice-cream we headed to the bus station - we were catching the night bus to Phnom Penh and then onto Sihanoukville for some eagerly anticipated beach time. The night bus in Cambodia has proper lie flat bunk beds so we were hopeful of a decent night's rest before five days of relaxing beach time.