Pages

Friday, January 25, 2008

Siem Reap and Temple Temple Temple

I took a bus from Phnom Penh to Seam Reap and the only really interesting thing about the bus was a stop where one of the guys on the bus bought a spider. He ask if I would like a leg and I found it pretty good. It was crunchy and a bit spicy but don't know any other way to describe it.

The area around Seam Reap was the center of the Angkor Empire at one time and has tons of remains from their temples. I rented a bike and spent a week riding to the different sites. I found this area as impressive as anywhere I have ever been. I really liked the towers with 4 heads on the gates of Angkor Thom and the Bayon in Angkor Thom.
I seemed to be pretty lucky on avoiding the huge number of people that view the different sites. The Bayon is the only place that seemed overrun while I was there. The day that I went to Angkor Wat I slept in and did not get there until about 11AM and it seemed that's when all the tour groups head to have lunch. I spent a few hours seeing the temple and when I was leaving the tour groups seemed to be arriving again.
I walked to one of the Angkor Thom gates (Gate of the Dead) that does not have a road that is used much and I also rode out of the west gate of Angkor Thom and at both of this sites I had it all to myself.

At all the major sites there are also tons of people trying to sell you stuff and a lot of them are children. Since they were always trying to get me to buy something I sort of just tried to have fun with it and it seemed to be a lot more enjoyable for them and me even though I did not buy much. The postcard sellers would always say 10 post cards for 1 dollar and often count out the post cards 1, 2, 3 etc. One of the places the children counted them out in English, Spanish, French and German. After that they ask me where I was from. This is the only time I have said I was from Holland to see if they could also count to 10 in Dutch. They did pretty good but I think around 5 it turned into German up to 10.

A lot of the time when I said I didn't want anything they would suggest people I should buy stuff for. You should buy this for your wife, mother, girlfriend, sister and niece. The wife and girlfriend I could just say I don't have one. Sorry mom and sis but to these two I got to where I would answer "I don't like them". The one girl that ask me about buying for my niece I gave here a truthful answer and told her that my niece is just like you and only wants money from me.

I am not going to bore everyone with talking about each of the sites I visited. After a lot of work I have cut the number of pictures that I put on line to a reasonable amount and suggest you check out my website to see some of the sites.

In Siem Reap I had a room with just a fan no AC and this did not seem to bad. It would cool off a bit at night and the fan kept me cool until the place lost electricity. I found it about impossible to sleep without the fan and last 2 nights I was in Siem Reap there was no power in the guesthouse. Not only the power but also the water was on and off. They said the water being out was due to no power but I was not sure why it worked sometimes and not others when the power was always out. I was ready to move on after 2 night with little sleep.

No comments:

Post a Comment