Angkor wat ....more can I say

A painful night in the rip off tune hotel at KLIA lcc terminal and we’re on a flight at 7:00 am bound for Cambodia, it’s a two hour flight and we get some new scenery to see whilst flying over the south of the country, it’s as flat as a pancake, mainly rice paddy fields.

Touching down in Siem Reap we’re met by a tuk-tuk driver from our hotel (it’s not really a tuk tuk, more a moped with a trailer.)

 

On arrival at the hotel Wan our driver tells us of the plans he has for us for the day which include an exhaustive itinerary of temple visits, all we want to do is collapse, however, we’re here to see the temples so a temple seeing we will go.


Starting with the most famous, Angkor Wat

then Bayon

 

and to Ta Prohm

which was used for filming “Tomb raider” and some of the Indiana Jones stuff, this is by far the most impressive as the jungle and strangler fig trees have taken it over.




last one of the day is Pnom Bakheng which has some amazing views

 elephants wait at the bottom to ferry the hoards of screeching Japanese tourists to the top of the hill

The whole temple complex is vast and covers a huge area about 50 sq km in all.




The locals seem a bit crazy but very friendly.

Day 2 of temple viewing

Cambodia is fun, a little bit hassley, the roads are madness, it all seems quite a bit third world, and very hot, hotter than the jungles of Borneo !!. There are a lot of limbless beggars reminding us of what this country has been through over the years but it seems to be getting itself back together. They use the US$ as the main currency which everything is priced in, and small change under a dollar the local currency the Real is used (of which there are 4000 to a dollar). The food is amazing, flavoursome and spicy and draught beer is 50 US cents a mug.
Had stir fried beef with red ants and water cress for dinner tonight much to Jo's disgust, just my way of breaking myself into the insect eating ways of life here in Cambodia.(and whats yet to come !!)

We're catching a boat early tomorrow morning to Battambang, Cambodias second city.