Cambodia - Siem Reap

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For the next three days, we stayed in Siem Reap, Cambodia temple hopping.

Siem Reap, Cambodia – Day 31 (March-1)


Today, we hire the Tuk Tuk driver from our airport pickup to take us around. We head straight to Angkor Wat, the most famous temple, and largest religious building in the world. The weather is really sunny and hot (over 90 degrees); not the best for pictures. We found it important to drink a lot of water at breakfast to get the drink, sweat, and pee cycle going.

world famous Angkor Wat

The temple is large and impressive. (Vana: it's better than Vatican, Great Wall, or anything I've ever seen my entire life. You are looking at a kingdom of civilization from more than 1,000 years ago) Besides the massive reliefs along the exterior walls, the corridors have great lighting for pictures.

hall way

CLICK HERE to see more Angkor Wat pictures.

Next, our Tuk Tuk driver recommends us to visit Ta Prohm. This was our favorite temple. The visit seems right out of an Indiana Jones set. While many of the other temples were cleared of jungle, cataloged, and reassembled; Ta Prohm is left mostly untouched. The temple is a maze of corridors, with fallen stone and wooden braces to keep structures from collapsing. Several places have 500 year old trees growing on top of the 700-1,000 year old temple with roots ripping the structure apart (or holding it together, says the tree).

front

back

Inside one tower is an echo room with a special property. If you stand on one wall and beat your chest, you can hear a long tail, low frequency echo. Oddly enough, if you clap or speak, there is no echo. Supposedly, the room is designed to remove evil spirits when you are not feeling well. This sounded great to me, so I went to town.


CLICK HERE to see more Ta Prohm pictures.

Our driver gives us a snack of corn, and Vana is happy because the corn has a sticky rice consistency, which she hasn’t had since childhood. In the evening, we bike in to town and find the restaurant alley, and bar street. Walking into restaurant alley is like stepping into another country (remained us of Si; motorbikes, stray dogs, and street vendors are replaced with foreigners (backpackers and platinum card holders alike) dining in bistros. The environment is very pleasant, but we don’t like the food we ordered.

restaurant alley

food looks good, but the taste is so-so

CLICK HERE to see random street scene pictures.

Siem Reap, Cambodia – Day 32 (March-2)

We get an earlier start and take the 1 hour Tuk Tuk ride to Banteay Srei. This temple is small, but famous for its very elaborate carvings in pink sandstone. We buy some hats for sun protection. Vana looks stylin’ in her new dress, hat, and purse.












CLICK HERE to see more pictures of Banteay Srei.

Next, we head back and visit the large complex of Angkor Thom, with Bayon Temple, Terrace of Elephants, Temple of the Leper King, and elaborate entrance gates.

Angkor Thom Gate

Angkor Thom Gate

Bayon temple is pretty amazing. The lower level is a maze of columns and hallways. The upper level has 54 towers (represents the 54 states in Cambodia), each with four giant faces. Ever feel like someone is looking at you?









CLICK HERE to see pictures from elaborate entrace gate and Bayon Temple CLICK HERE to see pictures from Terrace of Elephants, Temple of the Leper King

We stop by another temple where a team is dug down eight feet along the outside of the temple. There is a French professor looking guy, his grad student, and a team of locals. We watch the pick to bucket to wheel barrel to dirt pile system. That seems like too much patience for us. We think someone needs to build a special archeology robot digging machine. Our driver gives us a snack of Palm fruit. It’s a round and flat slippery thing that barely fits in your mouth. The outside liquid has only the slightest sweetness, and the fruit is like tasteless tapioca jello.

small temple with work in progress

research team lead by a French professor and his grad students

We tried to change our flight today to stay another day, and make full use of our 3-day pass, but the airline could not change it. We read the travel book a few days ahead, so we didn’t know there were so many temples to see. That’s fine, because at the end the day, Vana is snapping pictures like a robot saying; I am so done. We told our driver; we cannot look at any more. It only took two days for us to get temple fever.

Our Tuk Tuk driver, we love him!

Siem Reap to Bangkok Thailand Day 33 (March-3)

We really enjoyed Cambodia; much better than expected. Upon leaving I realized the government of Cambodia is running a cash machine by the bus load. Just take a look at our expenses for two persons in a typical short trip to visit the temples.

• $50 for two entry visa
• $50 for two airport departure tax
• $80 for two 3-day Angkor park pass
• $132 for 3 nights hotel, breakfast, misc drinks, hotel pickup, and two days Tuk Tuk driver
• $50 food

As you can see, about half of the $362 went directly to the Cambodia government.