Seeing the World: 'Siem Reap-ing it in'

'Siem Reap' - 14/08/2013 - 20/08/2013

The slow boat to Siem Reap was really noisy and not so enjoyable for the first couple of hours as the river was so narrow the boat kept crashing into the bank and tree's, spiders and insects all climbed aboard. In the last part of the journey we sat up on the top deck in the sunshine passing many floating villages as we made our way across Ton Sap lake. (Which is huge in the rainy season and swells up to about 10 times its original size).

When we finally arrived in Siem Reap we wen't straight to a hostel we thought a couple of friends we'd met were staying at and pretty much partied all night and into the next day. The next day was a right-off, we had at least 5 days in Siem Reap and apart from the temples of Angkor Wat there isn't so much to do! (Except party) Oh no...

The following day we explored the city center and markets and booked a show and buffet for the evening, we went quite tipsy which made it fun as the dancing was so slow it was almost going in reverse! The women were incredibly beautiful and it was cool to have a little glimpse into there cultural dance routines which tell stories. The buffet was amazing, and we left feeling realllly fat!

We spent the next day going around the Angkor Wat temples, we were originally going to do three days but one day was enough, some of the ruins and especially the big temples were just incredible but it's hot and neither of us although fascinated by it are temple enthusiasts. I'll let the photo's do the talking, we didn't want to pay for a guide so I don't really know much about the history of them individually, only what I saw on national geographic. The best part of the day for me were the temples at the end where nature had tried to reclaim the buildings and huge trees just emerge from the bricks!

The main temple - Angkor Wat

The carvings on the walls took 17 years and were all done by hand, some of them look almost 3D.

Bayon Temple (The one with faces)

I can't remember the name of this one... looks like a Mayan temple though.

Different temple again...

It's amazing to think all the carvings and building of the temples were done over 1,000 years ago, you can't even fathom how you would do it nowadays without cement, and all the hand carved stone... mind blown!

Siem Reap had awesome night life, the bridge which lit up and changed colours looked sick at night, and the infamous pub street saw us more than once!