We left Bangkok early Tuesday morning to head to Siam Reap, Cambodia. The journey is quite an adventure – takes around 8 hours including the border crossing. The Thai side has a good road and is quite uneventful, but as soon as you cross the border, the road deteriorates rapidly into what is known as the ‘dancing road’. Pretty much just a dirt road and is not helped by the almost daily downpours throughout the rainy season. So, it’s not that far from the border to Siam Reap, but the bus only can average about 20 miles an hour! Our rickety little bus made it to within 10km of the city before running out of petrol and the driver tried and tried but couldn’t get it started again! We spent around an hour on the side of the road chatting with a local family whilst waiting for a new bus to come pick us up – we had a great time as the kids were really happy and excited and our guide translated for us so we could find out bits and bobs about the family and their lifestyle etc.
We spent the next couple of days exploring the area around Siam Reap – the temples of Angkor are the main attraction and have made sleepy little Siam Reap into a goldmine for American/Chinese/Russian investors – 5* hotels are popping up left right and centre and the land prices are soaring. It’s still a nice little place at the moment but will even tually turn into tourist central.
The temples of Angkor are pretty spectacular and are spread over a much bigger area than I thought. We visited Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. The temples of Angkor Thom are much more collapsed than those at Angkor Wat, but are really interesting to clamber around and try to imgaine what they would have been like in their hayday back in the 14th century. One of the temples at Angkor Thom has been taken over by the jungle and has trees all growing out of the rocks. It was the temple used in the Tomb Raider movie apparently so the boys got excited about that! Angkor Wat is more complete than the others and has some very well maintained stone carvings of mytholgical battles and stories that are still a big part of Khmer culture now.
Our second day in Siam Reap we spent exploring Tonle Sap lake – the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia and makes up 44% of Cambodia. We jumped on a long-tail boat which took us out on a tributary to the lake – very very big and flat but with trees and bushes scattered everywhere as it is very flooded at the moment as it is the end of the rainy season. We passes through a couple of floating villages – all houses built on stilts and the communities thrive on fishing (fish and shrimp) and some people don’t every leave the villages as traders pass through selling all the necessities. We stopped in one of the villages for lunch – an amazing spread of all things you can do with fish and shrimp accompanied by the ubiqitous rice! After lunch we got into local paddle boats paddled by kids – very wobbly and I was a bit scared for my camera! They paddled us through the mangrove forests alongside the river and we even stopped for a swim J The water was lovely in this heat, but was quite silty which stuck to everything including every hair on our bodies – we discovered hairs in places we didn’t know we had hair!
Siam Reap was wicked and the town is thriving which makes me glad I went before it becomes too commercial – already there is a street nicknamed ‘Bar Street’ chocablock with restaurants and bars – good fun but completely aimed at western tourists.
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=60305&l=9e887&id=710385422
We spent the next couple of days exploring the area around Siam Reap – the temples of Angkor are the main attraction and have made sleepy little Siam Reap into a goldmine for American/Chinese/Russian investors – 5* hotels are popping up left right and centre and the land prices are soaring. It’s still a nice little place at the moment but will even tually turn into tourist central.
The temples of Angkor are pretty spectacular and are spread over a much bigger area than I thought. We visited Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat. The temples of Angkor Thom are much more collapsed than those at Angkor Wat, but are really interesting to clamber around and try to imgaine what they would have been like in their hayday back in the 14th century. One of the temples at Angkor Thom has been taken over by the jungle and has trees all growing out of the rocks. It was the temple used in the Tomb Raider movie apparently so the boys got excited about that! Angkor Wat is more complete than the others and has some very well maintained stone carvings of mytholgical battles and stories that are still a big part of Khmer culture now.
Our second day in Siam Reap we spent exploring Tonle Sap lake – the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia and makes up 44% of Cambodia. We jumped on a long-tail boat which took us out on a tributary to the lake – very very big and flat but with trees and bushes scattered everywhere as it is very flooded at the moment as it is the end of the rainy season. We passes through a couple of floating villages – all houses built on stilts and the communities thrive on fishing (fish and shrimp) and some people don’t every leave the villages as traders pass through selling all the necessities. We stopped in one of the villages for lunch – an amazing spread of all things you can do with fish and shrimp accompanied by the ubiqitous rice! After lunch we got into local paddle boats paddled by kids – very wobbly and I was a bit scared for my camera! They paddled us through the mangrove forests alongside the river and we even stopped for a swim J The water was lovely in this heat, but was quite silty which stuck to everything including every hair on our bodies – we discovered hairs in places we didn’t know we had hair!
Siam Reap was wicked and the town is thriving which makes me glad I went before it becomes too commercial – already there is a street nicknamed ‘Bar Street’ chocablock with restaurants and bars – good fun but completely aimed at western tourists.
Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=60305&l=9e887&id=710385422
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