After the short Tuk-Tuk it was out for some food, I sampled the local “Khmer Chicken Curry” was pretty good and once again, tasted so much better for only costing £2!

We had hired a Tuk-Tuk for the day and evening, which only cost about £20, this seemed compared to western prices, but was a little overpriced compared to the Cambodian minimum wage. The small hotel “Daily Aroma” was reasonably priced at $13 a night with air-con and had on-suite.

Daily Aroma Guesthouse

At 5:15pm we headed out to one of the temples to watch the sunset, tickets around the temples were £20 per day, but you could get in for free after 5:30pm.
The sunset or the major tourist overload wasn’t that impressive, but I did manage to buy two cold beers for $2 off about a 7 year old, which was pretty funny. We drunk them up the top and headed back to the centre for some grub.
“You want water Mr.?” > “no” > “you want beer Mr.” > “err yeh ok”

Tourist Overload

Posing on top of the temple

Local Beers

Here we were at a thousand year old temple, culture and heritage and I’m drinking beer on it, typically British, but I found it amusing!

Later that evening I enjoyed the novelty of cooking meat myself on a large hot upside down bowl in the middle of the table, I had a selection of five meats “Beef, Chicken, Squid, Ostridge & Snake” The snake actually tasted pretty good, then again I didn’t see it in it life like form. Afterwards it was a visit to a few bars down the classic “Bar Street”.

Cooking Bowl

My fine selection of meat, with the classic “snake” option

The “Temple” Club

Cocktail Menu

DAY 2 @ Siem Reap

Up bright and early it was off to see the famous temples for the day…

First stop was “Angkor Wat” meanings “City Temple” this was a pretty impressive temple, but probably too much commercial hype over it, most of the other temples were far more exciting and intriguing. The size of the temple makes it what it is, however the majority of decorations are repeated around the whole outside wall, which make it not so interesting when you’re walking around.

“Angkor Wat” Front gate

“Angkor Wat” The grounds, inside & around.

On route to the next major temple the “Bayon” we stopped off to photo the gate to “Angkor Thom” this was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire! The “Bayon” was the most interesting of temples visited, the faces carved on most of the walls were really intriguing with nooks and crannies around all the corners, the dark colour also made it pretty cool to look at.

Gate to “Angkor Thom”

“The Bayon”

There were some other random temples on route to “Ta Prohm” which deserved a few photos.

One of the other main attractions was “Ta Prohm” “tomb raider” was filmed here and more than likely had a very positive effect on tourism to the temple. The tree’s interweaved between the buildings looked very cool and fortunately there were a few more steps than “Angkor Wat” so less tourists milling about to ruin the atmosphere and photo op’s

There are a number of kid’s selling postcards, magnets, guidebooks, souvenirs and drinks. When you sit down on a table to get a drink you would be surrounded by them “you want to buy Mr.” “you give me $1 for 10 postcards” after humouring them by trying to sell my postcards back to them, she finally had enough when I said “no money” she replied: “no money, no honey, no money, no girlfriend” turned her head and walked away

After a day of temple spotting it was back to the centre and a night out with food and drink. We met some random guys/girls doing a hop on tour, a couple of Americans, Europeans and some Brits, we had a couple of beers with them.

Thai Lemon Chicken $4

Bar Street @ Siem Reap

Crazy American on the tour

Day 3 @ Siem Reap

It was the final 6h bus journey before flying back to KL from Phnom Penh, it was a pretty uncomfortable bus ride, but having been out the night before good to sleep!

The Bus to PP

Pit Stop