We had a couple of easy flights with Air Asia to get here. We had to overnight in Kuala Lumpur to catch an early morning flight (the only one) to Siem Reap in Cambodia and KL's airport is 70km outside the city - Air Asia have the answer, they have opened a brand new hotel so close to the terminal you can see it across the car park as soon as you exit the terminal. About 30 pounds for a smallish room (rather like Ryanair you pay extra for everthing, 12 hours of air conditioning, a towell etc) but it provided all we needed (even a small green arrow on the ceiling pointing to the direction of Mecca - although you would have been hard pressed to find any floor space for a prayer mat) and we only needed a few minutes to get out of bed and to the check in desk.
Siem Reap is the town next to the Ankor temples - many, many of them scattered around mostly to the north of the town. The hotel managed to get a driver to meet us at the airport (this is a first for us, its never worked before) and our cheerful driver Yang showed us to his tuk tuk - a sort of cart with roof attached to his small motorbike. They are all like this here and it provides a stately ride in great comfort at about 15mph.
What did we immediately notice about Cambodia? Well this place is developing like a gold rush town (as described to us by an Australian woman we chatted to last night), building work is going on everywhere. All the cars are flash, I have seen only two small cars which are not large saloons or Land Cruisers. Having equipped ourselves with about 50 pounds worth of local currrency (which translates to over a quarter of a million Riels!) we discovered that everyone uses the US Dollar and they look ascance at you when you try to use the local currency - that seems strange but there you go, there are several such places around the world.
Brian
We were up early again this morning, we were off in the tuk tuk by six am and at the first of the temples on todays list by about 6.30. It is cool then and there are relatively few people around so after going through the very impressive gateway, preceeded by lines of figures holding a cobras tail, we were able to clamber over Bayon Temple almost on our own. Bayon is the temple in Angkor Thom that has faces on each side of all its many towers and turrets, so many beatific, Budha faces that you would be hard pressed to count them all. There are also many comely dancing girls and a sprinkling of mythical beasts, the whole place looks as though a giant had got bored when building it and given it a bit of a swipe with his hand because it is all a bit wobbly looking and there are many many fallen bits arranged around waiting to be slotted back by the French and Japanese, who are restoring many of the temples in the area.
We went on to the larger Royal Palace area and goggled at the 300 mtrs of elephants carved into the wall that carries the platform entrance to the palace site. All the sites are set in jungle which has grown up arround and through the ancient ruins that are all that remain of the very large cities. The royal and temple buildings are monumental and of stone, but all the long since disapeared dwellings of the people were of wood, bamboo and other perishable materials.
Tess
Siem Reap is the town next to the Ankor temples - many, many of them scattered around mostly to the north of the town. The hotel managed to get a driver to meet us at the airport (this is a first for us, its never worked before) and our cheerful driver Yang showed us to his tuk tuk - a sort of cart with roof attached to his small motorbike. They are all like this here and it provides a stately ride in great comfort at about 15mph.
What did we immediately notice about Cambodia? Well this place is developing like a gold rush town (as described to us by an Australian woman we chatted to last night), building work is going on everywhere. All the cars are flash, I have seen only two small cars which are not large saloons or Land Cruisers. Having equipped ourselves with about 50 pounds worth of local currrency (which translates to over a quarter of a million Riels!) we discovered that everyone uses the US Dollar and they look ascance at you when you try to use the local currency - that seems strange but there you go, there are several such places around the world.
Brian
We were up early again this morning, we were off in the tuk tuk by six am and at the first of the temples on todays list by about 6.30. It is cool then and there are relatively few people around so after going through the very impressive gateway, preceeded by lines of figures holding a cobras tail, we were able to clamber over Bayon Temple almost on our own. Bayon is the temple in Angkor Thom that has faces on each side of all its many towers and turrets, so many beatific, Budha faces that you would be hard pressed to count them all. There are also many comely dancing girls and a sprinkling of mythical beasts, the whole place looks as though a giant had got bored when building it and given it a bit of a swipe with his hand because it is all a bit wobbly looking and there are many many fallen bits arranged around waiting to be slotted back by the French and Japanese, who are restoring many of the temples in the area.
We went on to the larger Royal Palace area and goggled at the 300 mtrs of elephants carved into the wall that carries the platform entrance to the palace site. All the sites are set in jungle which has grown up arround and through the ancient ruins that are all that remain of the very large cities. The royal and temple buildings are monumental and of stone, but all the long since disapeared dwellings of the people were of wood, bamboo and other perishable materials.
Tess
2 comments:
Those carvings have a very 'Indiana Jones' look about them! I would have found it irresistible to push and prod the various knobs and holes in the hope that a secret passage would open up!
Awesome tuc-tuc by the way! Looks like a brill way to travel. :) (Thinks: would they be suitable for Cambridge? Hmmm.)
Look East did a story about a man in Milton who imported one!
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