Day 46: Siem Reap to Phnom Pehn

Another travel day today, this time moving south within Cambodia to the capital Phnom Pehn.
The bus ride was just over six hours and involved both Andy and I holding in some very choice words and actions for the bus driver who would not stop blaring his extremely loud HORN. EVERY TWO SECONDS. FOR EVERYTHING. ALL THE TIME.
Oh and they were blasting Cambodian karaoke music throughout. Unfortunately my noise canceling headphones aren’t 100% effective. Anyway, we survived and are now in our newest hostel, recovering our senses and enjoying the AC.
But, let me tell you about my last two days in Angkor Wat! On Thursday we woke up at 4:30am to bike out to Angkor Wat and hopefully get a beautiful sunrise view of the temple. Unfortunately the sunrise wasn’t that spectacular, and Phnom Bakheng, the temple we had climbed to get the view, was also under construction. Nevertheless the early morning meant it was cooler, and since we were planning on doing the Grand Tour, a 27km trek, we got started right away.

First up was part of Angkor Thom, a large collection of temples. We wandered around there a bit and then biked to the East Gate, and then the Victory Gate, which border Angkor Thom. From there we biked around some more and saw a bunch of other temples that I don’t recall. After a while they all start to look alike. But, at around ten o’clock we collapsed, haggled with a screeching vendor lady and got lunch. Egg sandwich for me, and a free cold drink! After refueling we continued the pattern, and saw countless more temples in varying states of decay.

The collapsed ones are my favorite as I don’t really appreciate the rebuilding or restoration as it is called, of old things. Nope, old and crumbly with a hint of jungle for me! My favorite of the day was called Prasat Krol Ko, a small, hidden, dark stoned building that reminded me of the Lord of the Rings. With trees growing in and around it quite a pretty picture was painted!

At around 2pm we really couldn’t go on anymore, so we headed back to Siem Reap, bought some ice cream and water, sat in the AC of the supermarket for a while and then headed to the hotel. The next morning we had planned to try a different vantage point for seeing Angkor Wat at sunrise. But when the alarm went off at 4:15 both of us ignored it and then Andy suggested we skip it and go the next day (we had three day passes). I readily agreed and zonked out again.Two hours later we were up, and although it was only 6:30 I now felt refreshed and thank goodness we didn’t get up as I’m not sure how I would have fared. We decided to go after lunch and then stay until sunrise. In the morning I worked on my final paper, which I still need to work on, and then around eleven thirty we headed out and lunched at a Khymer place. I enjoyed some tasty Khymer Curry and we split tasty but weird spring rolls that had fennel in them I think. The whole meal including a mango smoothie was under $5, although since we are using USD that seems pricey to me!
Then we biked back to Angkor Wat and we hung with the monkeys! They are very pushy little things and they enjoyed the longan I had brought as a snack. One even climbed up me and onto my bike!

Andy was a bit scared of the monkeys

After that we went back to Angkor Thom and explored the back region which was really cute and overgrown. The trees in the whole park are absolutely amazing as well as gigantic. The best pictures are when they are growing through the stones and forcing them apart.

We spent such a long time wandering in the backwoods that we had to skip a couple of temples and head straight to our sunset place of Ta Prohm, where I think the infamous Angelina Jolie tree is. I actually don’t know what that is, but maybe you do. Either way it was very cool with more destruction and trees!

We were sad to leave when we got kicked out at 5:30. However, the ride back was beautiful and I must say I really like Siem Reap at night by bike. We had Indian for dinner and after some Internet time collapsed in preparation for today’s early morning. The next morning Andy and I dragged ourselves up and out of the hostel for sunrise. We joined throngs of tourists including the Camera Club of the Philippines, in trying to take an Angkor Wat sunrise reflection on the water picture. Moderate success later and we went back to Millennium, checked out and got on that annoying bus.