Friday, November 27, 2009

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap







Our bus ride into Cambodia was only about 6 hours. We did have to change buses/cars 3 times during the trip, but overall uneventful. Siem Reap is a great little town. There are tons of food stalls, a big market, hundreds of bars on Pub Street (many serving drinks called TombRaider or claiming that Angelina Jolie was there during filming) and real friendly people. We went to the temples and got a 3 days pass. They are really impressive with the detailed carvings still preserved in the stones with four different faces carved at the top of them, and there are a LOT of them (Ankgor Wat just being the most famous). The first day we spent 6 hours total there and saw sunset over Angkor Wat - we think sunrise might be better for those that are interested in getting up at 3 am to catch it. Ta Prohm (which the locals now call the TombRaider temple) has tress growing up through the temple and the limbs intertwine with the stones - pretty cool to see; Nature taking ahold of an ancient structure. Afterwards we decided to Pub crawl from one $0.50 beer place to the next and there are many. We ended up meeting a couple from Australia and going around with them until very early the next morning. We got a couple frNeedless to say, we did not make it to the temples the next day and bummed around town recovering instead. The last day of our pass we did the big circuit around the temples and saw many of the smaller ones that are a little bit different than Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. We caught on that most of the beggers or children selling items for $1 (everything is $1 here) will ask where you are from so they can tell you all the facts they know about your country. One girl was pretty impressive and knew that Joe Biden was the VP, Obama has 2 daughters, as well as the population of the US. So instead of egging on those long winded conversations, we started telling them we were from Iceland - they have no clue how to respond and walk away pretty quick.
After seeing all the temples, except for a couple that are further away and more expensive to get to, we took a boat around the floating village. It is a group of fishing families that live on their boats on Tonle Sap Lake all tied up next to each other. You can see the fishermen wacking the fish out of the nets using what looks like a tennis racket without strings. They also have a floating market, school, and basketball court. While we were on the boat we saw quite a few little girls with big snakes around their necks - we assumed trying to get money for a picture - and kids playing in the lake using big plastic bowls as floats (not that I would really want to swim in this lake). We were probably ripped off on the price of hiring the boat, but it is definately worth checking out. Next we are off the Phnom Pehn!

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