(Kam) I am sure that there are going to be many times when my pitifully limited vocab will not be able to express the sites that we experience. The temples of Angkor are most defiantly one of those occasions.

Duncan and I arrived in Ho Chi Minh and immediately started planning a side trip to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. Best, cheapest and most convenient mode was by bus. It took us 14 hours to arrive at Siem Reap from Ho Chi Minh via Phnom Penh and cost us $22 return. What excited Duncan the most about our trip was that they provided to little boxes of bakery delights to nibble on during our journey (for anyone who is interested, we travelled with Mekong Express).

As we stopped over for lunch in Phnom Penh I had one of those pinch yourself moments. You hear of Phnom Penh in news and consider it a city that it exotic and very distant. I had subconsciously decided this was a place that I would never visit, yet here I was… walking around the streets of Phnom Penh.. J

Cambodia has something like 2000 temple ruins throughout the country, Siem Reap is where the greatest cluster of the ruins are, with of course the major tourist attraction being Angkor Wat.

Siem Reap is an awesome and an unexpectedly hip town in the middle of the Cambodian countryside. The town has heaps of bars, pubs and awesome eating joints and a laid back backpacker atmosphere – with a street named “Pub Street” it promised to be pretty cool.

Funnily enough we found Cambodia not as cheap as Vietnam as the main currency in (at least the areas we were in) is US dollars, not so bad now that the Aussies and US dollar is one for one, but a year or so ago it would have been quiet an expensive side trip for many Aussies.

We spent 4 days in Siem Reap and loved every moment of it. The Cambodian people a wonderfully generous and kind, and very quick to have a laugh with you. Our stay was jam packed with doing as many things early in the morning (like 5am early!) mainly to avoid the main heat of the day (which was hot, damn hot!) and then reserve the afternoons for laying in our hotel pool or enjoying one of the many happy hours at one the Siem Reap pubs (which seem to start soon after breakfast).

Our first full day in Siem Reap gave us the opportunity to get the lie and the land and work out where we wanted to go and what we wanted to visit. We went down to Pub Street to find ourselves a Tuk Tuk driver who would be able to take use around to all the temples that we wanted to go (By the time that I left Siem Reap I would get used being asked “Hey lady do you want a Tuk?”). I sat myself down with a beer and watched Duncan head off down the street for the high powered negotiations. I kid you not when I say that Duncan chose our Tuk Tuk driver with an arm wrestle. All in fun and a lot of antics J .

Saran was our Tuk Tuk driver for three days and met us every morning bright and early at our hotel to drive us where ever we wanted to go. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer and more entertaining driver. Our first stop was to see the sunset over the Angkor plateau at the Phnom Bakeng Temple and Saran serenaded us an impressive selection of western songs for the entire trip.

Unfortunately the sunset location wasn’t as impressive. It is apparently ‘the’ place to be for sunset and after you trek for 20 minutes with hundreds of other tourists and the climb up the steep stairs of the temple all you get is a view of the sun as it sinks behind the row of trees directly in front of you which are obscuring the impressive view on the plateau.

Next morning was a completely different ball game. Sunrise at Angkor Wat will live in my memory forever as most likely the best sunrise I have ever seen. The temple is impressive for so many reasons. Such a photographed and well known image you can’t believe that you are standing in front of it. It is huge and amazing impressive. But the memory that will stick with me is driving through the jungle with the trees clearing to reveal the silhouettes of the four large towers looming above me in the pre-dawn morning. It was extremely creepy and wonderfully magnificent. For the next hour Duncan and I watch the blood red sun slowly rise behind the majestic Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is one of those places that it so photogenic from a distance as well as up close. There are some huge wall carving which depict battle and religious scenes within the temple. Duncan and I were so over awed by the whole experience and the place, that we instantly became worried when at 6am our camera only had 40% battery life left for the three other temples which we were visiting that day :s

We jumped into the Tuk Tuk and made our way to the next temple with Saran singing “Lady in Red” all the way. Next stop Angkor Thom which was the old city and had a number of buildings and temples which we could re-discover for ourselves.

One observation that Duncan and I made was how amazingly intact all the temples were after several hundred years. You hear a lot about Angkor Wat, but you don’t realise that there is a whole complex of temples and buildings all within a few kilometres from each other. Quite a few of these temples have only recently been rediscovered e.g. 10 or so years ago. Due to them being overgrown and lost under the ferocious jungle.

The last temple that we went to for the day was the Ta Prom temple, made famous by the movie Tomb Raider and Angelina Jolie jumping around the ruins. This was a smaller temple and amazing to see because of how the jungle has started to take over slowly disintegrates the temple with the vice like tree roots. Unfortunately the mysterious and majestic atmosphere was kinda of lost due to the hordes of tour groups which were there.

(Dunk) The next day we got Saran, to pick us up early again so we could see another temple Beng Mealea. Beng Mealea was about 70kms out of Siem Reap, but we were pretty set on going as we were told it was only discovered about 7 years ago. The early morning was hard after the previous night on Pub Street, but we were soon to find it was a small price to pay. We arrived to the temple at about 7am, and we were the first people to arrive for the day. It was really one of those magical moments, when you walk down the long jungle corridor over moats to the temple, with no tourists, and no crowds, and especially without all the hawkers trying to sell you something.

The first sight of the temple was of a completely collapsed in entrance, massive boulder-sized bricks obscuring the main entrance. This was a great sight, but what made it even better was that we actually had to scramble over these ruins just to progress through the temple. Kam and I thought we were Indiana Jones, and many renditions of the theme music were hummed.

It was so brilliant to be guided through such a beautiful temple, clambering on fallen walls, and with no tourists to see in any direction. I think in my opinion this was probably the best temple that we visited in Cambodia, not for the structure alone, but for the fact that you could clamber over the structure, the lack of tourists, and the newness of the building; one wall collapsed the day before we arrived! We are really glad we decided to make the effort to head out there.

On the way to the temple in the morning, our driver stopped by at his mother’s place in the countryside to drop off some supplies from the big smoke. It was lovely to see him with his mother, and nephews and see a real Cambodian family. On his way he suggested that we “relax” back at his mother’s house on the way back. Kam and I were very enthusiastic about this idea, so we asked Saran what we could bring to say thanks. After a bit of explaining about what we meant, Saran took us to a tiny village shop and I negotiated a good price for dried fish. An absolute highlight as we got to finally see what Cambodian (and I dare say South East Asian) life is like for the less fortunate. We were honoured to share a simple lunch of dried fish, rice and water, it was probably one of the most special meals we had in Cambodia. However, the desert of durian (a fruit that looks like jackfruit, smells like rotting flesh, and tastes like mushy, expired curdled milk) was less special. The worst part about this was that we knew how amazing it was for Saran’s family to offer this to us, and how incredibly rude it would be to refuse it. So as I walked away gagging on the first piece, Kam smiled and nodded politely, and as I let Kam walk away to properly digest what she had eaten, I smiled and accepted another piece. Needless to say that the remainder of our time in Asia (if not our life) when we saw the spikey horns of the evil durian fruit, both Kam and I cringed, and instantly could taste the horridness of the fruit; the only saving grace was that it was soon forgotten when we remembered the kindness and gratitude of Saran’s family.

Now accustomed with waking up before dawn, we decided to take on a day of Quad biking through the Cambodian countryside. Certainly a very expensive pastime compared to other activities in Cambodia, however it was recommended by one of Kam’s co-workers so we thought we would splurge a little! Thinking that the best idea would be to avoid the afternoon heat, we began our journey at 7am. Urgh! At first I thought I would be following Kam’s behind (which is not a bad sight) at 5km/h all day, but she soon became more comfortable and exponentially more daring as we took dirt tracks through villages, into temples, into a school/orphanage and even on highways! Thick with many layers of differing dust we were shown through an orphanage who, despite the numbers of students they cater for, have created a fantastic school, and environment for Cambodian children to study and learn. The children showed us around and it was amazing how brilliant their English was! I found it interesting that their 4 subjects that were taught were English, Japanese, Math and Computing, 4 subjects which I believe would be great for getting them into the work force!

After many lovely days in Siem Reap, leaving behind the amazing friendly people a heap of amazing sights, some delicious food, and some very cheap cocktails, we decided to move on and head back to Vietnam. Not without the 14 hour bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh City… But that’s another story…