Temples and Tuk-Tuks

Siem Reip, Cambodia is a complete shock to the senses after Singapore. Instead of the quiet people, flash cars, sky scrapers, technology and general up-beatness of Singapore, Siem Reip is a wild untamed, loud, annoying and beautiful place all at the same time. I met a tuk tuk driver at the airport and after haggling the price made my way to the city. After trying to convince me to go to the guest house which he most likely gets commission from he finally took me to the 'shadow of angkor' guest house, which is where I am right now.

I arranged with my tuk tuk driver (kim is his name, once you have a tuk tuk driver they become your personal cheffuer for your entire stay) a trip to my first temple of angkor, and at 4 30 that afternoon we took off so I could join another million people watching the sunset up on top of temple which was on top of a hill.

I had another long sleep that night because siem reip is another hour back in time, now I am 6 hours behind you folks in NZ. I spent the entire day yesterday going and checking out temples around angkor, the biggest and most grand being 'angkor wat'.

Angkor Wat from the back

Steep enough stairs? And yes I had to climb up them, all of the stairs on all of the temples are like this

The monkeys quite like the thousand year old buildings apparenetly

Breakfast near the temple

Some wally right before he fell over himself and wacked his shin on those very blocks..

After a shower I headed downstairs for a 50c draught beer, and met an aussie named craig. Soon after we were the best of mates and headed off to 'pub street' (really that's its actual name) for dinner at one of the many eateries, this street is where most of the bars and restaurants are located in siem reip, and is tourist central. Craig is two weeks into a journalism internship here in siem reip, which will last 3 months. We went to the 'Angkor What?!' bar and talked to all sorts of other travellers, one being one of the barmen, another aussie who was passing through and decided to take up a job at the bar for two weeks! We had some more of the local beer, you guessed it, angkor beer, and then I headed off so I could prepare for my 4 30 am wake up this morning. It was hard to get out of bed so early but it paid off when I watched and amazing sunrise of the temple of angkor wat. Im about to head off for lunch and a foot massage and then relax tonight and explore the rest of the city tomorrow by bicycle. On saturday  I'm catching the bus to phnom penh, my next port of call, and my friendly aussie mate craig is coming to, so I now have a travelling buddy! Missing everyone back home, hope everyone is doing well! I have taken hundreds more photos of all the temples, but this computer is very slow so I can only upload so many at a time.