Whenever I set an early alarm I always find it interesting to see if I wake before it goes off. This mornings alarm was set for 04:10 and I woke from a good sleep at 04:08. My internal alarm clock performing pretty accurately. We rolled out of bed and used the bathroom. The Bum gun at the Botanic was the most powerful yet! I think maybe too powerful, more like a missile launcher than a gun.
The night porter was on instruction to have a coffee ready for Em at 04:20 which he did. We had a 7 hour tour of Ankhor Wat temples booked and our guide picked us up by Tuk Tuk at 04:30. A friend from the yoga/ meditation retreat was going to join us as she was also in Siem Reap.
As we drove through the city the baselines and neon lights were still in full swing with a sprinkling of western faces littered among the open fronted bars still working hard on their hydration. Others were swaying by the little food carts gnawing on things that had been grilled over simple charcoal barbecues. It seemed like an alien world to us, we had long forgotten nights like that. We arrived at the main temple in total darkness with lots and lots of other people.
We were led by torchlight forming huge human chains like ants foraging for food. Mosquitoes were also out foraging for food and making the most of my bare legs. Our guide found us a good position and we sat to wait for the dramatic and renowned sunrise over Ankhor Wat, the first time any of us had visited a world heritage site.
As we waited more and more tourists arrived and I felt uncomfortable to be one of them. A gecko jumped on our friends lap before launching into a crowd of Americans and causing havoc! We sat and waited for an hour for the first rays of sunshine, that never came. What greeted us was a typical Welsh sunrise. As black grew into grey and nature lifted the middle finger to hundreds of photo hungry tourists. Some clown was flying a drone around spoiling any photos the eager crowd could hope for. We moved to a different angle and stumbled upon a giant centipede that raised my excitement levels and I lay on the floor for 10 minutes watching it whilst everyone took selfies of the temple.
Our guide started the historical information aural download and although I was really interested I was transported back to a childhood school trip to a museum where we were receiving a prolonged talk about some ancient pottery and my mind was fully in the natural history room next door full of crystals and stuffed animals and imitation volcanoes. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Angkor Wat has many temples spread out over a sizeable area and the main one had 3 levels. Level 1. Hell, Level 2. Earth, Level 3. Heaven. Hell being the biggest, the hallway was choked with stick bearing OAP’s and the human congestion was difficult to deal with.
Hearing about the looting and destruction of the temples put a different spin on one of my favourite childhood movies, Indiana Jones. To think that this place was constructed so long ago was crazy, it was so intricate and every surface was ornamentally carved. Level 2 also had an ancient swimming pool built out of the solid sandstone blocks.
Next up we grabbed our MTB bikes and got our first taste of cycling in Cambodian traffic. The trick was to think like a fish, move in your shoal, do not stop, go with the flow. These were quiet roads in comparison to city centre but still had plenty of action.
We made our way around the ancient city and as the temples we visited got more and more remote there were less and less tourists. This made me realise it was the crowds that were bugging me earlier, now things were quieter I began to engage more and get a feel for the places, especially the ones that were still in the process of being reclaimed by nature, there were some beautiful trees entwined among the stonework.
One of the temples was used for shooting the tomb raider films and definitely had that vibe about it. We had a few stops at local businesses on the way around for fruit, cocunut juice and lunch (pineaple fried rice for me and noodles for em). The roads turned into dust tracks that got narrower and narrower as the day progressed as we cycled through the Cambodian jungle and those childhood Indiana Jones memories came flooding back.
I was glad the guide was at the front taking all the spider webs to his face and clearing a path for us. At one point he went through a considerably large list of venomous snakes assuring us (not very effectively) that we would be too noisy for any of them to hang around.
We saw a few lone monkeys and a full troop but the highlight was a small family of gibbons swinging through the trees like furry Tarzan’s. Monkeys are very humanlike or are humans very monkey like? The temples (in my opinion) got better and better and cumilated with the last one (also the quietest one) which still had it’s lost in the jungle feel.
The trees were spectacular and I enjoyed watching the bats flying around inside one of the temple chambers. The final ride back to base was through some lovely forest single track and we burned along it snaking through the turns loudly to scare the snakes away. Was a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging way to see the temples.
When we were dropped off at the hotel we had a sleep for an hour before heading into town to do barter battles in the old market but we first stopped at a street stall for some food and a drink (a local curry).
The market was good fun now that I had settled into it. During the first visit the intensity was overwhelming. So many stalls selling pretty much the same stuff it was difficult to see how it all worked economically. The city obviously runs almost entirely on the finances of tourists, and remembering these people are trying to make a living rather than thinking they are trying to rip you off is the best way to look at it.
We bought a few items and then headed for food in a local restraunt, we skipped the frog and snake sections of the menu and went to the vegetarian page at the back. We had a couple of stir fries (broccoli ginger tofu and garlic and tofu and cashew) tempura veg and some spring rolls. I headed to the loo and was greeted by several large cockroaches scuttling over the toilet and walls.
After dinner we headed for a Cambodian foot massage which was the first massage without relaxing music. Rap and dance tunes exploded into the room from the noisy clubs outside. As we left and walked the street Emma was far enough away from me for someone to think I was on my own and offered me a girl who would ‘love me long-time’. It started to rain, heavy, so we jumped into a Tuk Tuk and arrived back at the hotel which was an oasis of greeness and calmness compared to the crazy world outside.
Leave a Reply