Here we are, back again, installment number two, which I'm sure will either be met with groans of "who ever let Jacob touch a keyboard," or "I guess I should be reading this..." Either way, I appreciate the reading <3
The accompanying photo album can be found on my facebook page.
Where: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Who: Anna, Vicky and I
When: 25th-29th Jan 2014
Yes, you've read that right, Alice dropped us like it's hot. We all had an emotional farewell at the airport in Bangkok, before trying to come to terms with it - acceptance is the first stage, or so I've been told. Srsly though, Alice had different travel plans, so we parted ways as she went onwards towards Hong Kong.
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| Travelling in style Our ride from the airport to our hostel. Not quite what we expected. |
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| Our hostel room. Again, practically luxury. Anna makes a cameo apperance. |
Jacob, what are all those words?! You may ask, and I'm going to give you a quick and easy way to distinguish between the aforementioned temples (only a few out of probably hundreds...) so you too, can sound like you know all about Cambodian history and impress your date when she/he turns out to be writing a dissertation on the architecture of Angkor Thom. Or y'know, just for general knowledge. Whatever floats your boat.
Angkor Wat: The big famous one (a complex)
Angkor Thom: Also big, not as famous (a complex)\
Bayon: The one with stone faces
Ta Prohm: The one Laura Croft was in.
Simple. For Angkor Wat, we ended up hiring a tour guide, a man who approached us within the complex, and assured us that he knew "everything there was to know," and he did seem pretty clued in. I highly suggest doing this for at least Angkor Wat if you're not going in with a pre-booked tour group, or spending a few hours reading Wikipedia before/afterwards. All in all, we spent about 7~ hours looking at various Temples - a short amount of time according to our hostel staff. If you want to spend days there, it's perfectly possible, but I feel we got to see the main ones, and that was enough for us.
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| Listening to our tour guide, the man in the blue |
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| Somewhere towards the top on the main Angkor Wat Temple |
That night, our tuktuk driver for the day, suggested we go to a "dinner dance" which is where whilst you're having dinner, there is traditional Cambodian dances taking place on a stage. Whilst what we got to see of the dances was good, the time he said it started at, was about 15minutes before it actually ended. Bit of a shame. Headed for more central Siem Reap, we explored the night markets, which were a nice mix of touristy things, as well as more traditional crafts and the like. After grabbing dinner, we sat in a bar on Pub Street (think a strip full of Bars and Westerners, and you're on the right track), listening to live music, and waiting to see if Hector, Faye, Alice (Brooks) and Joe would materialize - they were also in Siem Reap at the same time, and we'd roughlyish arranged to meet up with them (they did).
What happened then? A standard night of cheap alcohol and merriment? That'd be too standard and un-eventful for a night out when travelling. Around midnight, Hector left us - his stomach wasn't feeling too good, and Joe decided he fancied some ice-cream from a certain shop, so we parted - or so we thought. Within probably a minute of leaving us, Alice B spies the silhouette of Hector definitely not feeling good on the side of the road, and starts running to get to him. The rest of us see her running, and think "ooooh, running, sounds fun," and join in, before learning that she's actually not doing it for the fun of it. Cue dramatic music, as a motorbike drives by, before the back wheel skids out, sending the bike and it's two passengers skidding across the road right infront of us, sparks and all. Thankfully they weren't going that fast, so as they stand up, I got the bike up (gotta get my workouts in somehow when travelling...) and out of the road, as the rest check to see if they are ok. Seemingly un-shaken, the hop back on and drive off. Riiiight, that's not how a standard night out normally ends - both events took place within the space of about 30 seconds. Deciding to call it a night before anything else happened, we parted ways.
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| The Cambodian Trio |
The next day wasn't the most productive surprisingly, we had a lazy start (with lots of water and ibuprofen for me on the menu,) before walking to the Angkor Wat National Museum. Ok, so it doesn't sound like the craziest of activities, but it was actually pretty good, with 8 different galleries, and enough information to soak your brain cells in for hours, I'd say it was worth doing. That evening we went to see a circus show. The circus was run by a charity called PPS, which also runs a school, giving kids from disadvantaged/rough backgrounds an education in trades and arts. This gives the temples a run for their money for my favourite part of our stay in Siem Reap, easily.
For our final day, we spent the morning looking at various craft workshops/locations, which turned out to be not as good as we had hoped. The mainly consisted of a brief tour around the process and what was being done at each one, before being dropped into the shop to buy those products - we went to a soap one, and an art one. In the afternoon, we went to the Landmine Museum, which was a 45minute tuktuk drive away, but worth every moment. I had a brief idea about the recent tumultuous history of Cambodia, but learnt many things that I wasn't aware of , as well as being exposed to the very real effects that are still being felt by Cambodians today. Afterwards, we headed to the very serene Peace Cafe, which felt appropriate after learning about the horrors of past conflicts. That night, we met up with the others again for dinner, before we left for Indonesia the next morning, and they moved down to Pheom Penh.
Reflecting on all of our travels, Cambodia was my favorite destination, and I'd quite like to visit Phenom Penh sometime. A wonderful country, with very friendly people, and steeped in history - both ancient and grandiose, as well as the more recent and raw.
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