The Long Journey Home - 4th Feb

The Last Day - 3rd February

Today we were leaving Siem Reap and Angkor Wat to visit some temples which had been hidden in the jungle for a number of years. They'd been in Khmer Rouge territory for decades and out of bounds until 2002. The area had had to be de-mined before tourists could start to visit the temples again.

It was going to be a two hour drive through Cambodian countryside to get there but I was really looking forward to seeing some true Cambodia rather than all the hotels and bars geared to the tourists. The drive was fascinating. Many of the houses were built on stilts as in the rainy season much of the land floods. In the warmer season people use the space below for cooking and sleeping but move everything upstairs when it rains. Many Cambodians are poor, many don't have running water of electricity and 80% of all Cambodians don't have flushing toilets but use the jungle as their lavatory. You also have several generations all living together.

Typical Cambodian houses

Half way we stopped off at Dom Deak town for a wander through the market. We saw fresh meat, fish and vegetables being sold but the most amazing was petrol being sold in recycled plastic bottles on the road side. You just dreaded to think what could, and probably did happen.

Local Market

Local Petrol Station

Mid morning we arrived at King Suryavarman II's eleventh century Boeng Mealea temple deep in the jungle. This is the largest temple outside the main Angkor complex. In places the temple was remarkably intact and in other places utterly destroyed. Walking to it we felt like the only people there until we saw some children playing a shuttle cock game in the forest. Then as we approached the temple a tourist appeared from out of a hole in the temple with a private guide. However by the time we were inside the temple we were met with lots of tourists traipsing around the site.

After looking around Boeng Mealea we got back in the car and drove for an hour and a half to another temple called Banteay Srei. This also had been inaccessible until the late 1990s because of the Khmer Rouge. It is a 10^th Century temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. The red sandstone temple was a much smaller site, with smaller buildings compared with Angkor Wat, but much better preserved and you could see all the ornate carvings in the sandstone.

How to use a toilet

After this was lunch. Today the lunch was included as part of the tour which was great because it made us try things we wouldn't have otherwise ordered. We had a beef stir fry, fish curry served in a coconut, sticky rice and a platter of fruit. It was all really good. While we were eating we watched a group of oxen cooling themselves down in a lake.

Lunch

After lunch we drove to our final Cambodian temple. On route we stopped at a village where locals were stirring big pans of hot palm sugar to make sweets. They were really good.

The final temple was called Banteay Samre which was constructed around the same time as Angkor Wat and has a strong resemblance to it. It was a laterite structure which once featured internal moats. Again as with everywhere else we were met with young children trying to sell us things. I bought a scarf off them.

We were then driven back to our hotel and said goodbye to Sam and the driver. We then had a few hours to spare before dinner and it was nice to spend a bit of time relaxing by the pool.

Dinner tonight was compliments of the travel company. The itinerary had originally included viewing sunset at Angkor Wat from a tethered cable balloon however the balloon was out of action so they'd offered us a meal instead. This included a Cambodian buffet and a traditional dance show. It was all really good and we had a good view right at the front.

After dinner we wandered into town and had some drinks at a bar before taking our final tuk tuk trip back to the hotel. It all felt quite sad thinking this was the final evening of our 3 month trip. We both said that we could have carried on travelling another month, particularly as people were telling us how great Thailand was. Sadly this wasn't the case and we packed our bags ready for the journey home.

Our final trip in a tuk tuk

 

Cambodian Sunrise - 2nd February

Today was an early start. We were picked up by Sam our guide and our driver at 4.30am and driven to Angkor Wat. We entered the temple via the little-used eastern side rather than the main entrance. This was quite creepy as it was pitch black with just our torches to see where we were going.

When we arrived at the spot to watch sunrise we were by no means the first...there were already a lot of people there with cameras. We took our spot overlooking the ancient library pools with Angkor Wat beyond. We were probably there for an hour and a half before the sun rose but it was well worth the wait. We saw the sky get lighter and lighter and then the sun suddenly appeared in between two of the towers. Andy got some really great photos (although trigger Chalmers did average 2 photos per minute over the 90 minutes we were there).

Just a few people here to watch

Once the sun had risen we sat and had our breakfast box from the hotel and Andy tested out the 'local' Cambodian toilets...which he even had the privilege of paying to use.

Sam then took us round the interior of Angkor Wat temple and we climbed one of the large terraces for some great views of Angkor and beyond. The bas-relief carvings were spectacular and all depicted a story from the Khmer Empire.

After this our driver met us and took us onto Preah Khan temple which was built in the 12^th century for King Jayvavarman VII. It was the centre of a substantial organisation, with almost 100,000 officials and servants. Preah Khan had been left unrestored, with numerous trees and other vegetation growing among the ruins. It is however now being renovated by the World Monument Fund.

We were then driven back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. We went and sat by the pool and had some pizzas, ordered through the 'deputy pool attendant', before heading back to the room for a bit of a sleep. We then went for a walk outside the hotel and along the river.

Sam and our driver picked us up again at 3pm and we headed to the Buddhist temple of Banteay Kdei which was built in the late 12^th to early 13^th century. This is one of the less complex and smaller temples. It was quite dilapidated due to faulty construction and poor quality sandstone but is currently under reconstruction by a Japanese University. Banteay Kdei had been occupied by monks at various intervals over the centuries, but the inscription stone has never been discovered so it is unknown to whom the temple is dedicated.

Next we visited jungle-enveloped Ta Prohm, sister of Preah Khan. The temple was founded as a Buddhist university and monastery and was once home to 2,740 monks. Ta Prohm today looks much as it did in the early 1850s when the site was discovered by a French explorer with lots of trees growing out of the buildings.

We finally returned to Angkor Wat for sunset and again took some amazing photos before returning to the hotel.

In the evening we caught a tuk tuk into Siem Reap and chose a nice restaurant for dinner. We then decided to have the fish foot massage again, but at a different place.

We then took a walk around town but were pretty shattered from such an early start and so headed back to sleep.