CAMBODIA - Siem Reap (Angkor)

Siem Reap is Cambodia's second city and it has developed as a direct result of the Angkor the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire. It has been established that Angkor is the largest pre-industrialised city with an urban sprawl of 3000 square kilometres. It is said to comprise over 1000 temples fo various sizes, Angkor Wat being the most famous, which is the largest religious building in the world. Now that the superlatives are out the way I can tell you about our visit.

When we got to Siem Reap by bus we were greeted by the now familier bustle of moto drivers trying to get our business. We got to a guesthouse and made a deal with the moto driver to pick us up early in the morning for sunrise of Angkor Wat.

We got up at 4.30am and were picked up at 5.00am, it was pitch black and no one else was awake. We headed in our moto for Angkor a short drive away. On the way we picked up our photo I.D tickets and carried on. The roads were getting busier and it became clear that lots of people were doing the same thing. We got to Angkor Wat, although we couldn't see it as it was dark and followed people walking towards it by torchlight, firstly over a 200m wide moat then through a gate house reavealling a 350m long causeway to the temple itself. We found an appropriate place to perch and wait for the sun to show itself. I looked around and found it quite ironic that so many people, many of which i'm sure love to lie on the beach in their own kind of sun worship were here waiting for the sun to rise over a temple. Sure enough to sun arrived and Angkor Wat became a silhouette against a colourful backdrop.

Angkor is different to many other temples as it is orientated towards the west which led to the theory that it was built as mausoleum temple. It's site is approximately 1000m long by 800m wide. We walked around the temple and some of the grounds in a couple of hours and returned to our moto driver Chi who made a suggestion for a place to have breakfast. After. we continued to other areas of the city, firstly to Angkor Thom which is much larger than Angkor Wat in size as it was the ancient city walls. It covers an area of 9 sq kilometres and contains many temples of itself, perhaps the highlight being Bayon a temple of 50 towers with the head of a king carved on 4 sides. We continued up until the early afternoon looking at other remarkable temples, seeing elephants, both real and carved and avoiding being swallowed up by the rainforest. We needed to finish for the day in the early afternoon as we were all templed out and very tired. We knew that we still had the next day to see more.

That evening we were approached while eating dinner by a young boy selling books. He proceded to ask where we were from and then told us the last 4 prime ministers and facts about Great Britain, currency, population etc, he then asked if there were any books that we needed to which Clem asked about the next Harry Potter that we needed. He rushed off in search of it and returned with the wrong one, he went away again and returned with it. Then the price negociations began. These ended when he suggested they played a game for it, if he won she should pay his price, if Clem won she could pay her price. The game was naughts and crosses and he just so happened to have one drawn out with a cross already in place. He was obviously well practiced and won. This guy deserved the money and will definitely go far with the effort he put in. We later learned from other people that we met that these boys know facts abou almost every country a traveller might be from so that they can real them all off at the slightest whiff of selling a book. It was another fine example of very friendly people working very hard for a living and achieving it with a level of cheekiness that even i would have been proud of!

Next day we had a little bit of a lie in after the early morning the day before. We headed off to Angkor again by moto and looked around some more of the temples, the most enjoyable has to have been Ta Phrom which was made famous by the film Tomb Raider. Ta Phrom, unlike the other temples has been left to the mercy of the jungle and the sheer power of the trees is evident. Some of the trees litterally are swallowing up areas of walls. Roots extend to an enormous size and length. It is truly something to be seen to be believed. It has got to the stage where the trees are holding the temple together in places and without them the whole thing would fall down.

The final part of the day was spent at Pre Rup on top of the temple watching the sun go down with a beer. In the far distance, several miles away we could see the top of the towers of Angkor Wat as another day drew to a close.

The next day we would board a bus to Bangkok and Thailand. Angkor had certainly been worth the hype but it would have been nice to spend a little longer in Cambodia.

Throughout South East Asia I had been in touch with a friend of mine, Paul Daniels, who was apparently travelling through the same areas at a similar time, i was a little shocked when he boarded the bus we were on to Bangkok in Siem Reap. The journey was certainly interesting. The bus was full of people and there was no bag storage beneath, so every space inside was taken up with bags, including the isle and under every seat, this meant that you could not move your feet and when exiting the bus you had to climb over every bag or climb out a window as a couple of guys did. The roads to the Thai border was also terrible, dusty, bumpy dirt roads. The temperature was very hot and at one stage the bus broke down. Apart from all that it was excellent.