Siem Reap Continued

Siem Reap - Day Five

After a really fun night out at a bar in Siem Reap the next morning it was time to start our tour of some of the temples at Angkor.

Preah Khan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Khan

Ta Prohm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta_Prohm

Terrace of the Elephants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrace_of_the_Elephants

Terrace of the Leper King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrace_of_the_Leper_King

Bayon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayon

Pre Rup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre_Rup

At the end of the day we went to Pre Rup temple to watch the sunset, although it turned out there wasn't really one.

In the evening I was persuaded by some of the others to go to see a shadow puppet show followed by a dance performance. I had to be persuaded because I hate the thought of these naff shows put on for the benefit of tourists, but it turned out to be really cool. The show was in a beautiful French restaurant and we had a table right at the front. The puppets were beautiful and you could walk around and see the kids operating them at the back, the voice over however included all these weird and wonderful voices and I couldn't help keep laughing. The dancing was performed by the children from a local orphanage and was amazing, I really enjoyed it and was so pleased I'd been persuaded to go! Siem Reap - Day Five

Angkor Wat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

We were up before five to get to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise, it was amazing. I was really looking forward to visiting Angkor Wat, I guess it was the whole reason I booked my trip. I loved it and although the other temples were really cool, this was definitely my favourite. After we'd watched the sunrise we went into the temple and fortunately there still weren't too many people there yet. Our tour guide was really good but sometimes I'd just rather wander around and read a book about it later. We climbed the steepest ever stairs to wander around the top part and Ale and me stayed up there for a while, wandering around which was really beautiful and I hope the others didn't mind too much waiting for us.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Climbing back down the steps, this time with a handrail which helped considerably! The funniest thing happened on the steps though, Ale and me were cracking up with laughter much to amusement of everyone below!

There are amazing carvings everywhere, including lots of these and because I'm immature and think they're hilarious I thought I'd include it. They rubbed them for luck or something like that everytime they walked past.

East Mebon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Mebon

We met two girls at this temple trying to sell us silk scarfs, it turned out they'd learnt how to say their hard sell phrases in; English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese. Crazy stuff. They were lovely though and we spent quite a while talking with them, thinking about it probably more time than we spent looking at the temple.

The Landmine Museum

http://cambodia.showviz.net/

We visited the Landmine museum, which was obviously a big contrast to the other things we'd seen over the past few days. It was really upsetting and tough to listen to the young guide, Hak, who showed us around. Perhaps the most shocking thing was the number of countries that have still not signed the agreement stating that they will not use landmines, including *cough* the US. (http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_03/Rademaker.asp)

Chong Khneas - Floating Village - Tonle Sap Lake

http://www.peaceofangkorweb.com/TonleSap.htm

I was really looking forward to seeing the 'floating village' and it was proabably the biggest dissappointment on the trip. So there are some boats, that are on the lake, it's polluted so it smells terrible and there are groups of tourists just like us (I know) trawling around intruding on these people's lives. It was interesting to see the floating school, church, basketball court, homes so I guess I'm still pleased I got to see it but it just wasn't quite how I imagined.

Day Six - Siem Reap

The following day we visited the Silk Factory Museum which was really interesting as we were able to see the whole process from start to finish and then we were able to go shopping in the beautiful shop they had there!

"Silk Farm: 16 kms to the west of Siem Reap; the silk farm is a worthwhile place to see a slice of Cambodian rural industry. Set amongst fields of mulberry trees, the silk farm is a working factory farm, producing some of the finest silk in the country."