10.08.09 Angkor

We had three days in siem reap to explore as much of angkor (meaning city) as possible. We decided to save the big one for later and not do it immediately. We hired a tuk tuk to drive us around for the day and allow us to go further afield. We went to the Kbal Spean - a river in which some of the rocks are carved with images of vishnu (much of the carving is buddist hindu) and 1000 lingas. We then visited Banteay srei - the woman's temple which is the most intricately carved of the temples. We then went to banteay samre and ta som. We were amazed at how many and the scale of all these buildings. Siem Reap is very touristy and all of the prices are in dollars so you definately get ripped off, you just have to go with it here!

The next two days we hired bicycles and pedalled about 20 - 30 km each day. Day two we thought best to cycle to the furthest and then work our way back so we went to neak pean, preah khan, prasat prei, banteay prei and then into angkor thom which contains a number of temples. Bayon was particularly interesting because it has huge Buddha faces everywhere! For sunset we went to the hill bakheng with everybody else who was in siem reap area that day!!! The next morning we decided to get to angkor wat for sunrise so we arranged to collect bikes at 5am and set off in the dark with a torch on the back. As it got lighter we weren't sure if we would make it in time but we did and it was great (if not a little cloudy). By 10am we had seen the whole of angkor wat and moved on to Ta Prohm the temple which has been left/ maintained in a similar state to that which the temples were found in - overgrown by huge trees and their roots (of tomb raider fame). It was great especially once you wandered off the boardwalk to the quieter areas! No long lie-ins for us here, it was up early the next morning to catch the bus back to Phnom Pehn.