Pictures from Angkor Wat

Sunrise over Angkor Wat, 5:30 am.

Monks climbing Angkor Thom.

The temples of Angkor Wat

Finally in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) after spending two days in Siem Reap, to see the reputable temples of Angkor Wat. We stayed at a lovely guesthouse in the centre of Siem Reap, cheap and outstanding service from the Cambodian family running it. They took great interest in helping us with every enquiry we had and also arranged for a  tuk-tuk to drive us around the temple area (that turned out to be HUGE!). The first day we spent about 8 hours exploring the main part of the temples. We took millions of photos, climbed the steepest stairscases ever seen and was mainly just fascinated about the ages of it all, being about 1000 years old.

The second day started early with watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat, something that everybody seem to recommend and that everybody seemed to do. Together with a few houndred other tourists we watched the sun come up over Angkor, beautiful is not enough to explain it. The rest of the day was spent with our tuk tuk driver Chu and we visited even more of the temples. 

If it wasn't for the stiffling heat and lack of whiffs (and the fact that due to religious reasons, women had to wear long-sleeved shirts and something covering the knees, stockings in our case...) we could have enjoyed a few more days walking around the Angkor Wat. But for now, we are satisfied temple wise and left Siem Reap happy to move on to the next stop.

One thing worth mentioning about Cambodia and especially Siem Reap is the merchants that seemed to be appearing from nowhere trying to sell all kinds of unnessesary gadgets. A normal conversation that occured about 20 times daily could sound like this:
"Lady, you buy bracelet"
"No, thank you"
"Lady, you want to buy bracelet"
"No, Thank you"
"Lady, You can buy bracelet"
"No, Thank you"
"Lady, 10 for 1 dollar"
"No, Thanks I'm good"
"Lady, one, two, three, four, five six seven, eight, nine, ten for 1 dollar"
"No"
"Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, for 1 dollar"
"No"
"Okey, but you buy later, yeah?"
"No"
"Lady, when you buy later you come to me right?"
"NO!!!"

Not exaggerating. 

Pictures from Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville

Suvarnabhumi Airport (from which we were allowed to bring ALL our electronic devices).

My first Khmer food experience, the earlier mentioned salad which set my mouth on fire.

The local beer Angkor enjoyed at the beach. Together they were 64 pence.

The view from our guest house.

Otres beach, our favourite.

Waiting for breakfast.

I made a new friend who ended up stealing my baguette!

We went on a boat trip to uninhabited islands our last day in Sihanoukville. Rumours about Cambodia not having as pretty and dramatic reefs as Thailand proved to be true and neither of us were too impressed by the snorkling.

Turquoise sea, Khmer food and 32 pence a pint

So we're finally in Sihanoukville, easily our favourite stop so far! Every day we are enjoying a blue sky, white beaches and a turquoise sea. And of course spicy Khmer food (I needed assistance of nearly two litres of water when eating a Khmer SALAD the other night) and the local beer Angkor which is as cheap as 32 pence a pint. London prices are going to get hard to get used to again...

From Suvarnabhumi airport

Dear all,

Just about to leave Bangkok for one night in Phom Penh before moving on to Sihanoukville on the coast. If anybody is interested in a glimpse of the Sihanoukville beaches have a look here,  but we will surely post our own photos soon!