Seim Reap - Day III - Bill's Version

  Seim Reap, KH.16, Cambodia
April 19, 2009

OK, I get to write one of the entries, only because Theresa is feeling like crap and we ended up having much different days

We got up in time to meet the nephew of the guy I arranged to have us drive us around the sites today (in the empty parking lot beside our hotel). The tuktuks here are basically trailers behind a decent dirt bike. I must say the trailers are nice though. Theresa needed a couple more minutes after breakfast as she wasn't feeling well so I went down to Mr Som (our driver) to let him know we needed a couple more minutes.

After doing most of the "small loop" temples yesterday I put together an itinerary that will have us hit the other major temples over the next 2 days. We were starting today with Banteay Srei which is 28 kms to the north and then work our way back to Siem Reap by hitting most of the eastern temples on the “big loop” which should leave us enough time to see the rest tomorrow.

Our delay in getting going today meant that we got to Banteay Srei about the same time as a number of bus tours which made it a little crowded. The temple itself was a nice one. The reliefs and detail were in good shape but the size of the temple itself was small in comparison of the other temples we saw. Our next stop was the Landmine museum. Since I missed it in Vientiane I was really looking forward to learning a little more about what goes into the problem that these people have to live with.  

On the way Som stopped at one of the roadside stands selling palm sugar. We were able to see how it was made in some big cast iron pots (3 feet across) that the government hands out to every family – not to mention Cambodian flags which you can see flying everywhere along the road.   He also stopped at a “gas station” which is not much more than a table with litre Johnny Walker bottles filled with gas and sometimes a 42 gallon drum with a crank, glass jar on top and a gravity fed tube to fill the cars.

Thwarted again!! The Landmine Museum was closed because the owner's wife had passed away. Between kayaking and landmine museums I’m coming up empty. It was a good time for a stop again as Theresa was still not feeling well and used the toilet while we were there.
 
The next temple was Banteay Samre. It is the furthest east of the temples in the main group. There is a decent walk from the road before we get to the temple. It was an excellent temple, partly because of how good of shape it is in but also because of how few other people are at the temple with us that we almost had it to ourselves. Theresa started feeling a little worse so decided to sit in the shade while I explored a little more. The stairways were very steep and the walkways around the buildings were narrow and close to one another but I had a great time climbing all over it. I made my way to the east side where there was a huge terrace ith the mandatory naga railings and lion statues. Once I was done I made my way back to where Theresa was – but she wasn’t there. Thinking she had gone back to the entrance I made my way back down the trail to where Theresa was using one of the very few washrooms in the entire area.

Well Theresa wasn’t doing well so we decided that it would be best if we went back to the room for a rest and maybe shorten the day a little bit and head out in the afternoon.

It worked out OK for me – we ordered room service and I had a fantastic hamburger – it had been a while! Theresa had some cheese, fruit and toast – poor little girl. I watched the Chinese Grand Prix, nice to have the races during normal hours, It was Red Bull 1-2 with Vettle winning, even without the diffusers it looks like they are going to have a good year.

Theresa still wasn’t feeling well so she stayed and tried to sleep while I took off again. We had planned to tour the main Angkor Wat temple at sunset but I figured I should wait for Theresa so I decided to see some minor temples near the entrance to Angkor Thom and then see the sunset at Bayon (Som’s suggestion).   He dropped me off at Baksei Chamkrong which was pretty much just a tour – a pyramid style temple similar to the ones we saw in Chang Mai but the one big difference, this one had a ton of bats inside. From there I walked over to Phnom Bakheng which is on a large hill so it was quite a hike. I was met by a swarm of tourists coming off buses so they can watch the sunset from this high temple with a nice view of Angkor Wat. I enjoyed climbing over this temple as well. Many lion statues, monks visiting and some older Hindu shrines. I was nice up there but I was decided to go back down the hill (very much against the traffic) to meet back up with Som to go to Bayon.

On the way, just past the south gate we ran into a whole family of monkeys along the side of the road – Theresa is going to be pissed she missed these guys as there were many babies in the group.

Bayon was awesome, almost no one was there and I could explore again by myself, it was a lot beter without the additional people when we were there yesterday. I was able to take some great pictures but security kicked me out just before sunset. So it was back to the hotel