Are we going to see a temple now?
A wat.
A what?
A wat.
What what?
Angkor Wat.
Angkor what?
Yea, it's a big buddhist temple.
What is?
Exactly.
Exactly what?
No, Angkor Wat.
What's the name of the temple.
Angkor Wat's the name of the temple.
That what I asked you. And why are you calling me Angkor.
I'm not calling you Angkor. I'm calling Wat Angkor.
You're calling who Angkor?
No. Wat.
What?
Exactly.
I was going to blog about going to Angkor Wat and watching the sunrise over the temple and seeing its reflection in the pool, but I forgot my notebook so here's the quick synopsis:
We woke up at 4 to be at the temples before sunrise. Angkor Wat is the biggest (just the moat around it is 200m wide!) and best preserved of the dozens of temples in the complex. It was built in the 1100's and is still in great shape. We watched the sunrise over it and then went to 7 other temples that morning.
Angkor Thom: the old city housing many of the temples. At one point 1 million people lives within the wall. Now the walls are pretty crumpled but the gates are still in tact and have monkeys climbing around on them.
Bayon: Really cool temple that you could climb all over. The king who built it ordered the face of one of their gods to be etched into the four sides of all of the 54 spires in the temple, but apparently those faces look more like the king than the god.
Temple of 1000 elephants: I don't know if there were 1000 but there were a lot carved into what was left standing of the front wall of this temple.
Ta Prohm: Where parts of Tomb Raider was filmed! Awesome temple that has been overtaken by the jungle. The trees have their roots all entangled in the walls and our over 100 ft tall. I got lost and way off the path that I was supposed to be on which made this temple way cooler than it might have been otherwise.
Other highlight: A girl selling drinks and painting struck up conversation with me and when I told her I was from the states she began listing all of the states and their capitals! This was impressive. Then she started grilling me about state capitals and their largest cities! Luckily I'm pretty good at geography. I was so impressed I bought a cocunut from her for 2000 riel = $.50.
I also went for a run in Siem Reap but barely last 2.5 miles as it was hot at 10AM and the exhaust from motorbikes made my lungs burn. I ran along the river running through the city, which is incredibly dirty: brown, stagnant and filled with trash. I also (accidentally) ran through a markey along the river selling everything from clothes to fish to TVs. The market took plpace in front of the people's homes so they had a storefront and behind that was their 1 room home. This looked very impoverished until I realized many of the houses had TVs and computers in them. Strange.
In Phnom Penh now. It's big and dirty and smelly, but has some cool neighborhoods and a semi-clean river that's pretty. Will detail more later. Headed to the beach tomorrow for the weekend!
Showing posts with label Angkor Wat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angkor Wat. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
24 hours to Cambodia
We were in Koh Tao. A taxi, a ferry, a bus ride, another taxi, another bus ride, a government bus, another taxi and a tuk-tuk later we are in Siem Reap Cambodia.
The trip here just as crazy as the trip to the islands the first time, but this time we knew (more or less) what we were in for. The ferry dropped us off at the same pier, where we waited for 2.5 hours before boarding a bus - got to skip the minibus with the cough syrup drinking driver this time! That got us into Bangkok at 3 AM. Luckily it dropped us off in an area that we knew because otherwise we would have been totally disoriented and at the mercy of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers.
From there we hopped a taxi to the bus station, which must not be used by many foreigners because nothing was in English. After a great deal of confusion and some running through the station, we boarded a bus to Aranyaprathet, the town on the Thai side of the border with Cambodia. Our book said we would have to take a tuk-tuk to the border but the bus actually dropped us of right at the border. We didn't recognize this right away though and everyone you ask is trying to scam you so it's very confusing. After ignoring at least 30 men telling us we had to buy a Cambodian Visa before leaving Thailand (and trying to charge us way too much money) we found the Thai immigration office. We filled out the paperwork and crossed a bridge to leave Thailand.
Once entering Cambodia and going through a quarantine checkpoint, a very helpful Cambodian government worker showed us step by step how to enter the country and get a visa and everything. We got our visas, took a government bus to the bus station where we met an Aussie man who had been scammed 3 times at the border but was still in good enough spirits to split a taxi to Siem Reap with us. We each paid $10 US. (They use US dollars here for whatever reason, though everything below $1 is in Riel notes which exchange at about 4200 riel to the dollar. It's way confusing to get and give change.) The 2 hour drive was a good introduction to Cambodia. The rural towns are clearly very poor and impoverished. More so than in Thailand. The houses were mostly one room shacks, often on stilts to protect against floods, and often with uncovered windows or even whole walls. There were irrigation ditched in front of each house that protect against flooding, water the crops and probably serve as drinking water too. the countryside was lush with green bushes, palm trees and crops. It was pretty and like nothing I've ever seen but very poor.
We made it to our hostel finally and collapsed as it took us nearly 24 hours of traveling to get here. We had man tuk-tuk drivers approach us wanting to take us to the temples and after choosing the one that Lindsay and Leah (Tufts friends) used I felt bad telling the others we didn't need them. Everybody here is very friendly and has good English so it makes it seem more rude and harsh when I ignore them.
We met up with Lindsay and Leah for dinner that night. It was great to see some familiar faces in a strange new land. I ran yesterday and we went to Angkor Wat today which I'll write more about tomorrow but here's a few pictures:
The trip here just as crazy as the trip to the islands the first time, but this time we knew (more or less) what we were in for. The ferry dropped us off at the same pier, where we waited for 2.5 hours before boarding a bus - got to skip the minibus with the cough syrup drinking driver this time! That got us into Bangkok at 3 AM. Luckily it dropped us off in an area that we knew because otherwise we would have been totally disoriented and at the mercy of the taxi and tuk-tuk drivers.
From there we hopped a taxi to the bus station, which must not be used by many foreigners because nothing was in English. After a great deal of confusion and some running through the station, we boarded a bus to Aranyaprathet, the town on the Thai side of the border with Cambodia. Our book said we would have to take a tuk-tuk to the border but the bus actually dropped us of right at the border. We didn't recognize this right away though and everyone you ask is trying to scam you so it's very confusing. After ignoring at least 30 men telling us we had to buy a Cambodian Visa before leaving Thailand (and trying to charge us way too much money) we found the Thai immigration office. We filled out the paperwork and crossed a bridge to leave Thailand.
Once entering Cambodia and going through a quarantine checkpoint, a very helpful Cambodian government worker showed us step by step how to enter the country and get a visa and everything. We got our visas, took a government bus to the bus station where we met an Aussie man who had been scammed 3 times at the border but was still in good enough spirits to split a taxi to Siem Reap with us. We each paid $10 US. (They use US dollars here for whatever reason, though everything below $1 is in Riel notes which exchange at about 4200 riel to the dollar. It's way confusing to get and give change.) The 2 hour drive was a good introduction to Cambodia. The rural towns are clearly very poor and impoverished. More so than in Thailand. The houses were mostly one room shacks, often on stilts to protect against floods, and often with uncovered windows or even whole walls. There were irrigation ditched in front of each house that protect against flooding, water the crops and probably serve as drinking water too. the countryside was lush with green bushes, palm trees and crops. It was pretty and like nothing I've ever seen but very poor.
We made it to our hostel finally and collapsed as it took us nearly 24 hours of traveling to get here. We had man tuk-tuk drivers approach us wanting to take us to the temples and after choosing the one that Lindsay and Leah (Tufts friends) used I felt bad telling the others we didn't need them. Everybody here is very friendly and has good English so it makes it seem more rude and harsh when I ignore them.
We met up with Lindsay and Leah for dinner that night. It was great to see some familiar faces in a strange new land. I ran yesterday and we went to Angkor Wat today which I'll write more about tomorrow but here's a few pictures:
Angkor Wat at sunrise.
Tarik's famous half-opened eye.
The front of the temple.
Ta Prohm. The temple where Tomb Raider was filmed. It's over taken by the jungle!
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