Siem Reap (Angkor Wat):

February 15th, 2005 - February 18th, 2005

Greetings from the fourth country on our trip; Cambodia.

If I were to describe Cambodia in one word, hot would come to mind. The second word would probably be dusty!

It is damn hot here and with few paved roads we return each day covered in dust and dirt. With Siem Reap being inland it makes for a dry hot experience each day. Not to mention the heat radiating from the monuments making temperatures close to 40 degrees in the middle of the day.

We arrived here via plane from Vientiane. Unfortunately, we were unable to see the crown jewel of Cambodia - The Angkor Wat - from the airplane during our descent.

We were met outside the airport by a local man driving a motorcycle with a carriage-like thing attached on the back of it, kind of like the cargo compartment attached to the back of a semi-truck trailer. It sort of looks like a Tuk-Tuk (and is called a Tuk-Tuk in Cambodia), but it is not really a Tuk-Tuk. As they Thai's would say, "Same same, but different."

Our guest house is run by an expat journalist and his Thai wife and is pretty much the standard for how a guest house should be - clean, comfortable, and good food. If you are interested, it is called Two Dragons Guest House.

We made arrangements with our Tuk-Tuk guy to take us around the temples for our first of three days at Angkor. We bought the 3-day pass which rang in at a cool USD $40 which makes it the most expensive attraction we have seen to date (more than the Taj Mahal).

Our first day began at 4:45am when we were picked up to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. By noon we had seen most of the closer temples and were so exhausted that we returned to our guest house to sleep and avoid the midday heat.

A three hour nap and some tasty green curry got us ready to fight the crowds at sunset on top of the only hill in the surrounding area where you can see Angkor Wat.

It was a big disappointment as the temple was so far away that to even my zoom lens it looked like a spec in the photograph. Nevertheless, every tourist in town was there to snap photos. The best part is that the sun didn't even set near the temple. It set in the complete opposite direction!

Our second day began an hour later, much to our delight, but we were still out the door by 6am to beat the crowds to the temples and get that "perfect" photo! However, some of the perfect at these beautiful monuments is spoiled by the beggars and hawkers. They are aggressive to India-like proportions - and that is saying a lot.

They yelling out "Hey Lady or Hey Sir" at us and that is followed by a plea to buy a scarf or a cold drink. It doesn't stop there. They then state, "If you buy a scarf (or drink, or whatever), you buy it from me, OK!" It is like you suddenly have no choice in the matter... they own you!

Our driver just sits and watches with amusement as we field requests from roughly 5 people each time our Tuk-Tuk arrives at a temple. Apparently we handle it very calmly (clearly based on practice from India) and that amuses our driver. We just sit and wait and won't get out of the Tuk-Tuk for a good 2 or 3 minutes, testing the will of the sellers until a massive tour bus or whatever arrives and they leave for greater gain.

As for the rest of the day, there was not much to report. More temples and then more temples.

We did take a boat trip on the Tonle Sap Lake in the late afternoon to see a Vietnamese floating village (it is located here in Cambodia). Our boat driver, about 10 minutes from reaching shore at the end, flat out said to me, "You have a tip for me?" Talk about extortion! I said, "Yeah, were you needing it right away for something?" He seemed confused. So I gave him $2 USD. Apparently that was not enough because he asked for more money - in fact, he asked twice more before reaching the dock for more money. We refused.

Today was our third and final day. We decided to go further a field and check out a Bang Melea, a temple about 60km away from Siem Reap. We departed again at the ripe ole hour of six and headed out along a major highway.

Soon that highway became a familiar dirt road. Both Jess and I fell asleep in the Tuk-Tuk despite the bumps and bangs. All of a sudden I was awoken by Jess screaming. As I opened my eyes I saw our driver's bike slide out of control and to the ground. Since our carriage-like thing was attached, we were doomed, too.

Before I could think, it had tipped over on its side. I was in the seat that ended up on top and flew out of it, banging my leg on the Tuk-Tuk as we fell. Jess remained in her seat and only received a bruise on the side of her leg.

We were quite lucky because we were going only about 20 km/h. The road; however, was very slick because construction was taking place. Within minutes, locals had helped pick our Tuk-Tuk back up - at least those who were not still staring in amazement.

Meanwhile, about 3 to 4 other motorbikes slide out of control and hit the dirt in the exactly same spot while we waited to get back on the road. I'm not quite sure what was on the road, but it was making people slip as if they were driving on ice.

We finally made it to the temple it was well worth the drive - and the accident for that matter - as it was the nicest and most isolated temple that we had been to. It was mostly in ruins with trees growing over most of it. In fact, we had to climb and hike through the ruins just to get through most of the temple.

Once we finished looking at the temple we sat for a drink and saw a lady covered in mud. She and her driver were telling a story of how their motorbike slid out on the road to the temple. They were doing close to 80 km/h - but they were only scratched up, luckily. We told her of our experience, as well. I guess all the drivers were having a laugh because none of them had had a day like that where all the bikes were slipping out.

That about wraps up our time here in Siem Reap / Angkor. We leave in the morning to the capital city of Phnom Penh which is about 5 hours south by bus. We will spend a few days there before heading on to Vietnam.

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