Cambodia makes country number 4 on my great tour. I visited the Angkor Temples, spent time in Siem Reap and explored the capital Phnom Penh.
I've dreamed of visiting Angkor for years. It was the ancient capital of the Khmer Empire from the 9th - 15th centuries, built by Jayavarman III who declared himself a god king and eventually destroyed and abandoned in 1431 by the Siamese. Angkor was the largest city in the world, covering over 1,000 square kilometres with a huge water network, and was home to at least 0.1% of the world's population.
Angkor lay abandoned and slowly the wilderness reclaimed it. It wasn't until the 1900s that it was rediscovered and protection and restorations began.
I visited some of the Angkor temples along with a lot of other people. Angkor has become Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction and pulls in over 2.6 million people from around the world every year. I'll be honest, that's why I went to Cambodia.
Sunrise over Angkor Wat
One of my favourite temples was Bayon, or the Temple of the Smiling Buddahs. I liked the Buddahs here so much that I even Eskimo nose kissed one =] Though the temperature is definitely not Eskimo weather!!! Averages around 38/39 degrees C but with the humidity it's pushing into the mid 40s!
My other favourite temple was Ta Phrom, also known as the Tomb Raider temple. This is where they shot the scenes for the Lara Croft movie in the early 2000s. Here the trees have really gone to work. They've topped walls and grown through doorways and windows, great arching vines and twisted roots.
Walking around inside the ruins is pretty mind blowing, thinking of the people who'd walked those hallways centuries ago and how different life would have been back then. It's also a stark contrast to British heritage where we'd have a rope 10 feet back saying Do Not Cross and you'd be given a hard hat and steel toe capped boots. Or maybe the entire site would be closed to the public due to trip hazards and safety concerns.
One of the things that amazed me the most was the intricate detail in the stone that still exists. Every bit of wall or column is perfectly inscribed with decorative patterns and in many places there's ancient script too.
From Siem Reap I headed to the capital, Phnom Penh. I wish I'd explored more of the wild rather than just the two biggest tourist towns, as it definitely left me with a jaded view of the country - one of people everywhere, noise and motion and bright lights. Both towns were full of Western bars and restaurants all promoting their drink deals and night life scenes. Loud music and flashing lights attempted to drag people in to shiny dance floors and rooftop bars. And there are tuk-tuks EVERYWHERE! You can't walk three meters without hearing another shout of 'lady you wanna tuk-tuk?' 'tuk-tuk lady?' It doesn't matter that my hostel is barely a minute's walk from the street where everything is, or 30 seconds later when I'm about to walk under the archway proclaiming I am Where It's Going On, they still want to take me somewhere..! I saw t-shirts for sale on the market that just said No Tuk-tuk on the front.
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