Tomb Raiders and the Temples of Ankor.....

Had a late start on Tuesday morning as it was bucketing rain down - and eventually headed up to Ankor on a tuk tuk. Got a 3 day pass for the temples and didn't know what to expect really. Ankor was an ancient city of the Khmer people which was a centre of an empire - similar to Rome. It had a population of 1 million at a time with London was a town of a mere 50,000. Only temples were built of stone, the rest of the city was made of wood, so hence the temples are what remains, and there are ruins of over 100 Hindu and Buddhist temples dotted around the area.The guide book said that it is where the Tomb Raider movie was based and filmed - but I hadn't seen it.

First stop was Ankor Wat - the headline temple that is everywhere, on their national flag, their beer, everything. The temple itself was pretty impressive - fairly big and lots of corridors and the likes. Got some good pictures here too - but the highlight of the visit was James getting attacked by a monkey to steal he's bananas! We were walking along and saw a monkey come from each side. We didn't know why he was looking at until another monkey jumped up into he's arms, and took the bag containing 2 bananas out of he's hand. Brilliant. It was funny to see how the monkey eats to banana by peeling it just like humans.

It was nearly 4pm when we were finished with that - and we'd only time for one more temple, so the tuk tuk driver took us to Ta Phrom - another one of the temples. This was definitely the highlight. It was a classic scene of where jungle meets civilization with the temple ruins overgrown with trees and moss, and is some cases, crazy scenes of trees growing up on walls and doorways blocked by fallen blocks etc. Spent an hour looking around and took some great pictures, as it was like a scene from Indiana Jones.

We finished the day on that high note, and got more Khmer food that night back in Siam Reap. We booked to tuk tuk driver to take us around for the grand tour the following day, and we'd get an earlier start to get a full day of it. Also,we watched Tomb Raider in the hostel that night - and saw all the sights from that day - so it meant more.

Wednesday, we headed back up to Ankor again in the tuk tuk, and we visited about 10 temples during the day, with our tuk tuk driver waiting for us outside ea/ch time. None were as good as Ta Phrom from the previous day - but pretty cool all the same - and got some good pictures too. It was fairly warm, and we survived on pineapples and water for the day - but no monkey visits luckily. There was kids and mothers at every temple selling food, drinks etc. Everything was $1 We bought some tee shirts in the last temple after some bargaining. Had a chat with the kids selling them after - they told us that they come there after school each evening. They had perfect English and joked with us a fair bit. When a big tour bus pulled up, I told one of them that she had new customers - but she simply said "Japanese - they no buy !".

Once back in Siam Reap, we booked our bus to Phnom Penh for the following afternoon. Siam Reap actually has a buzzing night life and having avoided it the last 2 nights - I was on 2 minds on whether to hit to town, or to go to bed early and watch the sunrise over Ankor Wat, which is a sight for those willing to make the sacrifice. Decided on the former as the 2 Leitrim lads are a bad influence and it was good fun - very cheap drink.

We got a tuk tuk to the local nightclub until late. Myself and Ross got chatting to a few locals who ended up giving us a guided tour on the back of their mopeds. The back of the bike was kinda cool, hadn't done it before - but when in Rome! Got some food later and had a chat about growing up in Cambodia etc. I then suggested that the 4 of us should head up to Ankor Wat and watch the sunrise at 5am - and the girls thought it was a good idea - as they'd not done that and they live there. So up we headed on the mopeds again to the temple, and as we got near, there was loads of tour buses, mainly with Japanese tourists.

The sunrise was very cool. There was a little lake in front of the temple and the reflection on the water is one of the best pictures I've taken - something that would make the front cover of a Lonely Planet. We stayed there for an hour or so and it was well bright when we left - but it had started to rain. We cruised through the rest of the temples after also and got soaked - but we thought the Cambodian girls some Irish along the way. After a very short sleep Thursday morning, we boarded the bus to Phnom Penh - and had to wade through 2 feet of mud water to get on the bus - not much of a drainage system here! Got much needed sleep, as there was actually a road in this part of the country, and it was on to the capital of Cambodia.