Ankor What?
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
I was travelling Cambodia and was torn between going south to the beach and the parties or going north and seeing the apparently unmissable temples. I really wanted to go south but I heard so much about how fantastic the temples were that I finally decided to go north to see Ankor Wat temples in Siem Reap.
Siem Reap is a cute little town and there are loads of travellers there, like I was, to see these temples, so it was a great place to meet people. The town itself doesn’t have much else too see apart from Angkor Wot but there are loads of cute little restaurants with fantastic food and some bars as well.
The best way to see as many of the temples as possible, easily, is to hire a tuk-tuk driver for the day for about $20. We left early in the morning as there are loads of temples that are scattered throughout the area, with a few temples as far as 150km away. You need to buy a temple pass in order to see the temples, these are available in one, two or three day passes. Everyone told us to get the three day pass but I thought one day was more that enough.
There are some amazing temples and many of them are in great condition, my favorite was one of the temples in the forest where it looks like the temple is growing out of the trees (rather than the other way around) and its amazing of how it got to be that way. Temples are tiring though so I stopped for lunch near one of the temple sights (and wouldn’t recommend it!) I was barraged by a heard of children selling loads of random things. While I was trying to eat my rice they were hanging off of my arms so I don’t think I actually managed to get any in my mouth as the rice was sent flying on each tug of my arm. There was no getting rid of them, and believe me I tried everything! I left pretty quick and went to see more temples. By the time it got to 3pm I was templed out so called it a day.
Everyone goes on about the temples and how amazing they are, and although it was nice to see them I did regret not going south!
