Texting while driving an elephant…

Hotel is great, and provides welcome relief from the heat & humidity that gets you as soon as you walk outside. Have learnt how to sleep in the air-con. Something that was near impossible before, but you can’t do without it here. Even managed a swim in the hotel pool – first time this trip. Have been very lucky with the hotels this trip. Booked them all through wotif.com. So different from the ‘old days’ of travelling when you had to contact places individually & just take your luck!

There are people from everywhere here. All to see the magnificent Angkor Wat. France. America. Canada. USA. And this is the low season. Imagine in the peak of the season. It is great just to listen to all the languages & accents blend in together as I sit & watch the world go by in ‘Pub Street’. Makes you realise just how big the world is. Pub Steet, as it is aptly named, is full of them.

First night we checked out the sunset over the temples of Angkor. Amazing. Honestly. To be humbled by such a place really reminds you how small you are in the world. There were a HEAP of tourists there as well, but it didn’t matter. It still blew my mind. It was a feat it itself to get up the stairs of the ruined monument we watched it from. So narrow, and angled ridiculously. Sneakers are definitely required here, and fake pink Converse ones will do the trick nicely. Though, there are lots of Asian tourists who are in heels (heels!!) here. 
Crazy. Must want a broken leg. Some tourists were getting around on elephants, and may favourite moment of the day was watching an elephant ‘driver’ texting, while navigating his elephant (complete with tourists aboard) down the hill.

Nightlife here is definitely geared for tourists. Bars & restaurants open late, night markets & massages to all hours. Lorraine has decided that she loves Cambodia. Everyone keeps telling her she is beautiful. I tell her it is because they like old people! Hahaha! The markets are great, and I bought the obligatory pair of fake Dior sunglasses, that I’m sure will do nothing to actually protect my eyes from the sun. Siam Reap also seems to be famous for the fish ‘foot massages’ as they call them. The ones where the fish eat the dead skin from your feet. They are on EVERY corner, and all called ‘Dr Fish’. Some even say, ‘No pirahna’. Well I should hope not!! If I come back with no toes, you 
will know why.

While I remember, let me tell you about Asian beds. They are hard. Like sleeping on a board hard. I think that is why massage is so big here. To break up all the knots you accumulate overnight. And to bend you back into place.

The temples of Angkor. They deserve a blog all to themselves. Truely amazing. Astounding. Unbelievable. It was a city built to honour the gods Vishnu, Buddah & Shiva. The temples are a blend of Buddhism & Hindu. Building started around 879 & went through to around 1200. At the height of the civilization, more than 1 million people lived around the temples in Angkor (the capital city then). It is a 25km circuit around them all, so good thing we had a driver!

Started the day with a mini-hot air balloon ride over the temples, but it was too hazy to see much.

The temples are now ruins of what would have once been an amazing city. The jungle is literally taking over the temples, though the Cambodian Gov, with the help of many countries, is trying desperately to conserve what they can. It is a place of magic & wonder. Huge stone blocks, carved with intricate designs, crumbling into the forrest. Carvings of gods, elephants, monkeys, battles & mythical creatures adone the walls everywhere you go. The ruins are amazing in themselves, but combined with the Cambodian jungle, you can do nothing 
but stop & stare in awe.

The temple Ta Prohm is called ‘the tomb raider’ temple, and at any time I expected Lara Croft to swing from the trees. Very cool. A lot of the temples have stone statues of Buddha with their heads cut off. During the time of Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge, the Army cut their heads off to sell. And you can see the indentations from gunshot as well. Thank again Pol Pot…

Angkor Wat. The temple they all come to see. The largest temple there. A 1km square temple and is surrounded by a moat about 800m wide, that was once full of crocodiles. Impressive by size alone. Stands 65m high with 3 levels surrounding a central tower. It was huge, but probably not my favourite. It is surrounded by acres of forrest, but it doesn’t encompass the temple like the others. The land had been cleared, and it is quite stark around it. But that just adds to the magnificance.

As the day progressed it got hot. Ridiculously hot. I’m talking your shirt dripping wet. We lasted 7 hours, then we were done. A truely amazing sight, and definitely a highlight of the trip so far.

Wednesday we visited ‘Waterworld’. Or, as they say here, the floating village. It is literally a city that floats on Tonle Sap Lake, the biggest lake in Cambodia, spanning a massive 12,000km square. To get there you jump on a little boat & travel through the muddy waterway until you get to the lake. The boats are great, they pass so close you could touch the other, but it minimises the amount of splash. Once you get to the village, you can see they have houses, schools, churches, shops, everything. Sadly, they still manage to have kids begging. The  parents put them in boats & pull up beside you, holding a python, and  ask for $1 for a photo.