I was very impressed by Siem Reap. Like the other parts of Cambodia that I have visited, I found it to be well developed with many Western norms available, i.e. an excellent Haribo selection. The people were friendly and the area much cooler and safer than Phnom Penh (renowned for bag snatchers). The night market is enormous with excellent quality items within every category available, with Pub Street just a stone's throw away, which is the main restaurant and bar street for tourists and has a great atmosphere at night. The hotel that Ronnie and I stayed at was a welcomed step-up from the basic living of Koh Rong, although it wasn't quite the luxury that I imagined from the photos, with questionable AC, no running water two mornings in a row, and dodgy wifi. The staff, however, were lovely, and there was a small pool where I was able to catch some rays during down time. The weather was also awesome during the 3 days that we were there, enabling me to keep on top of my island tan, which was much appreciated, albeit it did also mean that I had to suffer through a day of exploring temples in the scalding heat; you can't have your cake and eat it after all!
The long:
Tuesday:
Ronnie and I rocked up to our hotel just in time to capitalise on the free breakfast buffet, after which we retired to our room and star-fished on the beds for the next 2 hours watching TV. At around lunchtime we made our way down to the "pool area", or should I say bathtub with 4 sun beds that only receive 2 hours of sun from midday till 2pm due to the surrounding overshadowing buildings, for a snooze in the sunshine. We made the most of our 2-hour slot reading and chatting, before a thorough and much needed deep clean and beauty sesh. As the last of the day's light disappeared we took to the streets to explore the night market.
We both got a little over excited and spent a fair bit of dolla but, then again, I haven't really bought anything other than some clothes in Hoi An so it was about time. I was also glad to have held out till then as everything that we saw was of a far superior quality to that which we have seen elsewhere in Asia.
There was an entire section of the market dedicated to purely Arts & Crafts, which we got lost in for a decent chunk of time. You accessed it by crossing an attractive bridge over a small river that had brightly-lit floating decorations on it.
When we were shopped out/(almost out of money) we headed to Pub Street for some dinner.
We chose a local, busy restaurant that stood out all the more for being next to a totally deserted one. I had an amazing mango & shrimp salad, washed down with a pear cider. It hit the spot perfectly!
Neither of us were up for a mad one so we wandered down Pub Street to check out the bars and general nightlife scene, where we stumbled across an excellently wittily-named establishment:
The street was packed with people spilling out of the bars and dancing in the street, which left us looking forward to the pub crawl that we were planning on going on the following night. But pleased with our relaxed day, tan and shopping achievements, we headed back to our hotel and chilled in bed watching a movie on Ronnie's laptop. Alex (my friend from the LPC) and his buddy arrived at the hotel late in the evening, so we had a quick meet and greet before nipping off to sleep to prepare us for the huge day ahead.
Wednesday:
Alex's friend, Dan, was a lovely guy but a bit of an odd one, preferring to spend his travels in various Asian gyms, counting the macronutrients consumed in every meal, abstaining from alcohol and even general sight-seeing, so Alex, Ronnie and I set off for a day of temple bashing without him. A 1-day temple pass costs $20 and gives entry to every temple in Siem Reap (of which there are an overwhelming amount). We had a cutie of a tuk tuk driver for the day who told us what the best plan of action would be within our time frame, and which temples were simply unmissable. Following his recommendation (and, to be fair to him, plenty of internet reviews that I had perused the previous evening), our first temple of the day was Banteay Srei, or "the Lady Temple", supposedly a very beautiful and under-appreciated temple. An hour later, bouncing along dirt paths in the deep countryside with still no temple in sight, it started to become clear why this temple was perhaps less visited than most. Finally, we arrived.
The detail of the carvings absolutely blew my mind:
I felt incredibly naive when it dawned on me that I actually had no idea why the temples we were visiting that day even existed. Unhelpfully, but soothingly to my brain cells, neither did the others, so we did our best to eaves drop on tour guides for the rest of the day. From what we could gather it seemed that the King had them built as homes for his nearest and dearest; I wouldn't have minded being mates with him! As for Banteay Srei itself, it was indeed a beautiful temple but did not stand out to any of us as particularly special once our day was complete, so was perhaps not worth the bumpy journey, although we all agreed that we enjoyed our sights of true Cambodian outback lifestyle. The return journey was made all the more comfortable with the purchase of a huge, cold coconut, which I slurped for the majority of the way.
Next was Pre Rup Temple.
Pre Rup had more of an Ancient Rome feel to it, and I loved how tall a lot of the stand-alone pieces were. It was cool that it essentially has a central higher temple, surrounded by a courtyard and then an outer wall of temple buildings, reminding me of a protected castle.
^ Alex doing a poor job at bumming a lion.
After Pre Rup we drove along Sras Srang, otherwise known as "the Royal Pool", which was a beautiful large flat lake, covered with water lilies and surrounded by over-priced but tasty tourist trap restaurants. We went to one chosen by our tuk tuk driver and enjoyed a local meal from the open 2nd floor overlooking the pool. Re-energised it was time for another temple; Ta Phrom, or "the Tomb Raider Temple", so called because it apparently looks like the setting for one of her films (not that I can comment on the similarity as I don't believe that I have ever seen them). Ta Phrom was, however, probably my favourite temple of the day, with unbelievably unusual and stunning trees growing out of the temple buildings, giving a real adventure vibe to the place.
I have grown a bit of a fetish for cool tree roots:
After Ta Phrom we drove to the city of Angkor Thom and visited Bayon Temple, which was probably my second favourite.
It was huge and an absolute maze, and had a real jungle feel to it, in my opinion.
I absolutely LOVED the faces carved into the stone.
^ Obviously we had to try to fit in.
It really is the amazing detail that makes these temples so interesting and beautiful. God only knows how long it must have taken them to build with only simple tools at hand; it is so impressive. Bayon was particularly intricate and ornate:
^ I just found it utterly mind blowing.
Outside all of the temples tourists have built their own miniature versions out of surrounding rocks, which I thought was pretty cute.
Of course I added my own rock! Eventually, (having walked 3/4 of the way around it, and back on ourselves) we located our tuk tuk driver and headed for the Crown Jewels, Angkor Wat. But not before spying this Asian couple; it seems to be common for the man to carry his partner's bags, even if it is bright pink. I think we should adopt this etiquette into our relationship Michelle!
En route to Angkor Wat we passed these beauties just monkeying around. Why is every animal so adorable in miniature form?!
I must admit that by the time we arrived at Angkor Wat we had been on our feet, climbing temples and sweating our heads off for the best part of 6 hours, so we probably didn't examine it with quite the same enthusiasm and energy that we had at the start of the day. However, as soon as it came into view we were all taken aback by its grandeur.
It has a very long straight path leading to it, with beautiful, shimmering water on one side of it.
But the deathly sweat to finally reach it was worth it.
The magnitude of some parts of the temple building were staggering. I still can't get my head around how they built these things.
It is obvious that Angkor Wat is the most grand and, considering the excellent original condition that it is still in (compared to the others), it is presumably also the one that took the most time and effort to build. It is incredibly big and genuinely took every last bit of my energy to fully explore.
I did really appreciate it but I must admit that it only landed a 3rd favourite for me. Perhaps if I hadn't been ever so slightly templed out by the time I saw it my view would be different, but I don't actually think it would be as I loved the trees and detail of those that I think I preferred. We then joined the MASSES trekking up Bakheng Hill to reach "Terrace of the Elephants Temple" to watch the sunset. On the way to the temple we drove past these guys, which I can only assume are all members of a family; I guess it's more economical than a 4x4!
With an estimated 15 minutes to go before the sun would disappear we made the snap decision to race back to Angkor Wat and see if we had any better luck there. Photographing the actual Terrace of the Elephants in the setting sun was, in my opinion, much more picturesque than the view from the top of it.
^ Just a handful of people.
Unfortunately, the sun does not set behind Angkor Wat, but some attractive pinks and blues striped the sky as I took its final shot of the day.
Absolutely knackered and desperately in need of a shower, we drove back to our hotel in the dark. It had been a long, incredibly interesting day. But there was no rest time for the wicked! Seeing as we wanted to join the pub crawl we needed to get our skates on with getting ready and having dinner. Dan crawled out from under his rock to join us at "Khmer Kitchen", a really highly rated and reasonably priced traditional Cambodian restaurant, that I was super excited to eat at. We shared fresh spring rolls before I had the Amok (Khmer fish curry) with rice for mains.
I was totally disappointed with the starter and not impressed with my main, so I felt hugely let down considering that I had had such high expectations. Almost immediately afterwards I got a really bad stomach ache, but soldiered on to join the pub crawl as I had been really looking forward to it. Just as we arrived at the first bar I decided that I simply could not do it; I needed to get that meal out of me ASAP! A vomit later I felt delirious and nauseous, so left the others to do their thang whilst I went home and felt sorry for myself in bed. Thankfully, water and a toilet nearby did the trick and I felt much better within a few hours, but that didn't help my exceptional jealousy of the other's fun night when they told me all the stories in the morning.
Thursday:
It was a beautiful day and I awoke with a much happier stomach, so was in a positive mind frame for the day ahead. Dan had "no interest" in visiting the orphange that Alex's uncle supports, so Alex, Ronnie and I toddled off on our adventure without him once more. We stopped at the local market on the way to buy necessities and treats for the kids. Alex bought school supplies whilst Ronnie and I splashed out on toys and fruit. When we realised we had been shopping and haggling for over an hour, we decided to call it a day buying presents and actually go see some kids! A short tuk tuk ride later and we arrived at ASPIRE. We were greeted by about 10 very shy children aged between 2 and 9. We had been expecting 70 kids so we looked around expectantly for the rest to make an appearance. But we then met Sean, the kindest, most generous human being that I have had the pleasure to meet in a long time, who told us about his work and aim, and informed us that the rest of the children were at school and would not be returning home until 5pm. Then it all made sense. Since it was not even midday we cracked on with breaking the ice with the children that we did have at our disposal, and waited eagerly for the others to arrive. Considering these kids have next to no belongings and eat the same 3 meals every single day, they were the most well-behaved and restrained children on the planet, politely waiting for us to display our goodies and hand them their apples and bananas. They were totally overjoyed with our toy selection as people that come by the orphanage usually just end up making a donation, which obviously helps to improve their living conditions, but it is not particularly fun for them. To put in perspective just how little these kids have, they have all asked for clothes for Christmas as their one gift each. Having said that, I did think that their sleeping arrangements could have been much worse and was glad to see that they had a bed to sleep on, even if they did have to share 1 between 2. Sean gave us the grand tour of the girls' bedroom;
a classroom where the children get taught extra English before they go to school;
the school that Sean has been building for the last 5 years, the progress of which is constantly stalled and restarted depending on cash flow,
^ It really is unbelievable how strong bamboo is.
and the rest of the property, including the boys' bedroom; a small, outdoor kitchen; his very dry vegetable patch and few animals for butcher.
Sean is an immensely selfless man, not keeping a penny for himself but constantly trying to make ends meet in terms of paying rent, school fees, buying school uniforms and food. Those children with parents whose whereabouts cannot be located are given Sean's family name, giving them a sense of belonging, which I think is truly lovely. He told us that he lives every day working from his heart, and that he feels he lives a very fulfilling life of which he is proud. I could not have had more respect for him. Having thoroughly pulled on our heart strings we set about getting to know the kids quietly observing us better. It didn't take long before they were laughing and running around us, pulling us in each and every direction.
^ The bubbles were a particularly great hit.
It took a while for the little'uns to get the hang of jump rope, but they learnt the ropes pretty quickly! (wink, wink).
It turns out skipping ropes are pretty versatile, so we had a round of limbo next.
It was also amazing to see how naturally gifted some of the children were at sports, with Neet (in the orange shirt above) quickly showing himself as a boy of many talents. He was also a super cool dude and may or may not have been one of my favourites,
together with that cheeky monkey on the left in the blue and white striped T-shirt; seriously, who could resist that smile?!
It was also so nice to see how much the children looked out for one another; they really are left to their own devices and pretty much raise one another. It was fairly amazing to observe. With the time not even 2pm we realised that we had a long, and exhausting, way to go before 5 o' clock was going to roll around, so we decided to save some energy for the others, go back to our hotel for a few hours and return when they were all home from school.
After a group pic of the morning's kids we took our tuk tuk back to our hotel. (Don't ask me why these kids weren't also at school; we did ask but didn't really get anywhere!). Back at the hotel I treated myself to a bit of "Made in Chelsea" on Ronnie's computer whilst she went out on a shopping spree, and before long it was time to head back again. Pumped to meet the rest of the children, aged anywhere between 5 and 20, we immediately set about breaking the ice once more when we arrived. We were a little annoyed at having come bearing our treasures when so few of them had been around as we didn't want them to think that we had turned up with nothing, but it wasn't long before our gifts re-appeared and I hope they made the connection. The older boys played football and racket ball with Alex,
whilst Ronnie and I entertained the younger generation with skipping, bubble-blowing, swinging them in circles and jumping them in the air.
^ Words cannot describe how much I fell in love with this kid; he would erupt in fits of giggles every time I spun him around, persistently requesting for me to do it "again, again". We then had the cracking idea of a limbo competition, which began with them all standing in a line and going one-by-one, but quickly broke into chaos with them all just running around in circles and going again at the same time.
They all looked so happy and it was a really nice feeling having been able to give them even just a few hours of joy. The day's light was disappearing fast and the woman of the house was cooking up a meagre supper for the children on her bare bones outdoor kitchen appliances.
We left them to eat in peace, but were totally overwhelmed and touched when they all walked down the long path with us to our tuk tuk and stood waving until we disappeared from sight. On our way back to the hotel Alex decided to skip his next planned destination of Sihanoukville, leaving Dan to go on on his own, and spend a few more days helping out at the orphanage, which I thought was really great.
So after another speedy turnaround the 3 of us went out for drinks and dinner on Pub Street. I ordered stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts and "extra vegetables". I received a plate of onion with perhaps 1 chicken mini breast fillet at most. Sad times.
The restaurant did, however, satisfy on the drinks front, with rather strong G&T's coming in at $1.50. We got rather merry and thus chatty seeing as it was (for real now) the last time I will probably ever see Ronnie, and to mark the next chapter in each of our trips. Around midnight we bar hopped between Angkor Whot? and Temple Bar, positioned opposite one another and competing to play the loudest music, which didn't actually make for such pleasurable listening. Although we did have a boogie in the street I simply couldn't take my eyes off this incredible 13-year-old girl, whom we befriended earlier in the evening. She speaks crystal clear, perfect English; has a cracking sense of humour; is an unbelievable dancer; is one of the most confident and likeable people that I have ever met, AND she brings home the biscuit for her family by selling hand-made bracelets in the most non-pushy way, so that you actually end up buying them. She is a legend! Genuinely too cool for school.
Around 2am we made our way back to the hotel and flopped into bed.
Friday:
With absolutely no plans other than to be ready for my cab to the airport at 3pm, I had a wonderful little lie-in and packed my suitcase at the speed of a snail. I squeezed in a good hour by the pool catching some rays, before showering and jumping in my taxi. It was much sadder saying goodbye to Ronnie this time around as we both knew we definitely wouldn't be crossing paths again (at least, not on this trip) and, naturally, have grown much closer in the more recent time that we have spent together. I used up my remaining dollars at Siem Reap airport on a cheeky coconut and hopped aboard the plane to Bangkok.
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