Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)

Oct 12:The trip to Siem Reap
We knew this was going to be an interesting journey from the stories we had read online. The journey started with a taxi ride to the train station...at 4 am. Turns out the taxi driver was lazy and it was too far of a journey, so he stopped and shuffled us between a few taxi drivers before we found one that was willing to take us all the way into Bangkok. We arrive at the train station, purchase our tickets and hop on the train. [Sidenote: Thai trains are nothing like Chinese trains. There was no getting to the station 2 hrs ahead of time, standing in a crazy line, and sprinting to get a seat. We just bought our tickets and hopped on the train. Awesome.] The train was pretty awesome. It was rather old, but it had these huge, amazing windows that everyone just left open for the whole ride. We slept for a good 3-4 hours and then just watched the beautiful country side for the rest of the time. A few hours before we got to the border, it started raining. Luckily for us, our side of the train wasn't getting hit by the rain (the other side got a bit more wet, to the dismay of the passengers...when they tried to close the windows, which you had to pull up, they just slid back open with a loud clank). We got to the border and before we even got off the train a tuk-tuk driver had spotted us and yelled through the window to get our business. We bargained the price down, and hopped in his tuk-tuk. Just like we were expecting, he took us to a over-priced and/or fake visa building, and we only had to tell the guy there for us 3 or 4 times "No, we don't want a visa from you, take us to the border" before the tuk-tuk driver obliged. Once at the border, we followed the large crowd of people toward the Thai border, passed through customs, and started searching for the visa office. After some meandering (and me tripping, falling, and dropping my passport in a gross smelly puddle) we found the passport office and only had to pay an extra 100 baht (~$3) "fee" on top of the $20 visa fee. Then, passport stamp, free shuttle bus and an almost unavoidable overpriced taxi ride to Siem Reap. We thoroughly enjoyed our 2-ish hour ride through the country side through the almost lime-green rice paddies. We watched lots of people wading through the fields fishing and saw our first of many water buffalo (no cows; their hooves rot). We also noticed the very high level of the river. After checking in to the hostel, we were infomed that it had rained for about 12 hours the night before and the entire bottom floor of the hostel had flooded. Luckily, our room was on the 2nd floor. We immediately checked the weather forecast and were disappointed to see the next many days forecasting lots of rain (not so good for temple-exploring), took our first cold shower of the trip and went to bed praying for sunshine.

Oct 13: First day in the temples
Angkor Geological Park pretty much contains a crap ton of temples. Based on advice from our friendly hostel lady, we decided to save the biggest and best for last, and started the day with the "grand tour," aka the circle of smaller temples around the big ones. We grabbed a tuk-tuk driver and headed out. Our first temple was simply breathtaking and we climbed to the very top and enjoyed the view for a few minutes. We also began to realize how freaking hot (and humid) it was, but I guess we shouldn't have been too surprised since we're in the middle of the jungle. Turns out the tuk-tuk is a great air-conditioner after you sweat so much at each temple (30 mins of sweating, 10 min cool off in the tuk-tuk, and repeat...hehe). We saw some pretty sweet temples--a funerary (cremation) temple, a temple encicled in water, some temples deep in the jungle with trees growing out of them, and a really huge temple. We also checked out some ruins further away from Siem Reap that are some of the oldest in the area. During our temple-to-temple excursions we discovered the not-so-nice part of the temples: all the vendors. As soon as you disembark from the tuk-tuk, you are immediately surrounded by a cloud of Cambodians, all asking to buy bracelets or scarfs or paintings or postcards. 'ladee, buy scarf from mee?' or 'mister, cold dreenk? only one dolla. one dolla for cold drink, you buy from meee?' The children are especially adept (one young girl counted to her 10 postcards in about 4 different languages before we cut her off; who know how many she actually knew). Anyway, we had a great mini-day exploring some of the smaller temples and were only hit with about 10 minutes of rain (yay!). We headed back to the hostel and passed out for about 2 hours and missed sunset (oops). Oh well, we decided to grab some dinner at a place recommended by our newest favorite website, chowhound.com. We had some delicious Amok (traditional Khmer stew/soup with coconut and curry), chicken and basil, and papaya salad. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel, did some laundry, and hung it on our make-shift zig-zag-across-the-room clothesline (yay for boyscouts).

Oct 14: Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat
We had planned to start the day with sunrise at Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, at about 2am or so it started pouring and had definitely not stopped by 5am. We waited a while for our tuk-tuk driver, but he didn't show up (we figured he had trouble getting to our hostel with all the water), so we went back to sleep and told the front desk guy to wake us if the tuk-tuk driver arrived. We got up around 9 (rain had stopped!), only to discover that our tuk-tuk driver had gotten there at 5:30 and no one came to get us (eeeeeeeeee). We grabbed some quick breakfast and headed off to Angkor Thom, a huge ancient city surrounded by a wall. First we stopped at Bayon, the temple right in the middle of the city. It had a bunch of towers, with faces on all four sides, and most of the carvings were very well preserved--it was simply amazing. Then we walked to a temple under construction, checked out terrace of the elephants (a sort of 'dock' where people used to get on their elephants!) and terrace of the leper king. Afterwards we went to Ta Prom , probably our favorite temple. It is a rather crumbly temple, and moss is growing everywhere. Many really large trees are growing out of the ruins, and you really feel like an explorer (and/or little kid) going through it. We snapped a bunch of pictures, but were kind of hurried because we wanted to have enough time at Angkor Wat. Approaching Angkor Wat is really cool. There is a huge moat and a giant walkway, and then of course, the beautiful 5 towers. Other than that, honestly, we were rather disappointed with the interior of Angkor Wat. It was definitely the largest temple, and probably in the best condition, but it just wasn't as exciting as the other temples. Maybe with a guide to explain all the carvings, it would have been better, but as it was, not our favorite. Rather bored, we headed out the back of Angkor Wat and were taking some pictures when it started to drizzle. Then the rain started to get really loud and we turned around and looked in semi-horror at the sheet of water quickly approaching. We ran, but got absolutely soaked anyway (once we got back into the temple, people gave us some pretty funny looks). The rain lasted maybe 20 mins, then we headed back outside to take some pictures of the sunset. Even though it was still a bit cloudy, the sun lit up the temples and they looked completely golden; it was beautiful. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel and got some recommendations from a German guy who had been living in Cambodia for 5 months (he made a documentary and then returned because he fell in love with a Cambodian woman...awww). He also informed us (to our horror) that the $40 entrance fee we paid did not go to park management or temple restoration or preservation or anything like that...it just lines the pocket of some wealthy guy (all the temple restorations are sponsored by individual organizations or countries). sad. Anyway, the restaurant he recommended was absolutely delicious! We ate some Khmer dumplings and spring rolls, some curry and a 'sweet potato in a pot' dish (with cheese!! our first cheese in like 3 weeks or so). Afterwards we headed to the Temple bar for a beer a traditional dance show, and back to the hostel for some sleep.

Oct 15: Sunrise and other stuff
We actually made it to sunrise today! It was rather cloudy (still not sure if it was worth getting up at 5am for...) but we still got some nice pictures of the sun peeking through the clouds. Then we headed off to Banteay Srei, a really far away but beautiful temple. It's made of pink sandstone and all the carvings are in amazingly good condition. We grabbed a coffee with milk (condensed) and ice (eek) and then headed off to Kbal Spean. It's about a mile hike through the jungle to a river full of carvings. It's called the river of 1000 lingas, aka phalluses, which were worshipped. Although most of the carvings were eroded away, we caught a glimpse of a few, which were still quite impressive. On the way home we stopped at the Cambodian Landmine Museum and this little hut on the side of the road where our tuk-tuk driver showed us how palm sugar is made (and we even got to try it!). On the way home it started pouring rain (luckily our tuk-tuk has side-flaps so we didn't get too wet. unfortunately our driver got absolutely soaked despite his rain jacket). We made it back to the hostel and our currently awaiting our midnight sleeper train to Siahnookville.