Ankor What?
On the bus ride from Phenom Phen to Siem Reap, we met a few Quebecois. At yet another planned bus stop, Asim must have been really hungry because the only food that she found edible was a bag of fried crickets. I was really impressed that a seemingly squeemish little Canadian Chinese Vietnamese girl was ripping the legs and head off the fried crickets and popping them in her mouth. I decided not to partake in this barbaric ritual. I love trying new things, but fried crickets is apparently a bit beyond my level of adventure. We actually arrived in Siem Reap 30 mins before the published arrival time (something that never happend in Vietnam). But unfortunately, we were still 10K outside of town. Here is where it gets really wierd! Seemingly 100s of Tuk Tuk drivers swarmed us as we got off the bus with signs saying the exact opposite of what they were doing. “No Hassel” “Take you to any guest house 1000 Riel (.25)” Some even had 500 Riel on their signs, but upon further examination it was free, but they want to be your drivers for the next couple days around the vast network of temples around Ankor Wat.
I just stepped aside as I let Corey, Cris and the girls get hasseled. I told all the drivers that I was waiting for my friends to decide and to ask them instead of me. One guy still grabbed my arm and after I said repeatedly no touching, I said alright, we are definately not going with you. That seemed to keep them off me pretty well. After a few minutes, we finally sorted things out and 3 Tuk Tuks took us to find a hotel. Our first choice was full, which was a shame because it looked very nice. The next place we got to was also nice, but way too expensive. That’s where well honed my bargaining skills took over. We had 6 people and needed 2 rooms. They started the bidding at $18 for 3 people in a room. I started at $10, but wouldn’t go above $12 (my carry over from Vietnam of “I only want to pay 4 dollars” 3x$4=$12). Finally they said OK. Now it was time to haggle with the Tuk Tuk drivers to be our chaufers for the next 2 days. I knew $8 was possible, but we had 3 people in each tuk so I settled on $10/day. Mind you, that is a load of money in Cambodia! People outside of the tourist business may make something like $50/year or less. The funny thing about Cambodia is that even though they have their own currency, Riel, almost all prices are quoted in US Dollars. The ATMs even spit out greenbacks which was great since I had spent so much of my US Dollar reserve in Vietnam and at the border. We decided to see the sunset and get a late start instead of seeing the sunrise at Ankor Wat. We decided that because we were up ’til 1am drinking with our drivers and would have had to start at 5am.
The temples were amazing! We started at my favorite, Bayon. We spent about an hour wandering around the temple of faces without a guide because we thought we could hire 1 there. For some reason, there are no guides at the temples. You have to hire one in town so we sent our driver back to get one for us. It was good to have a guide b/c he was able to tell us about the stories behind the frescos all around the temple that we would have surely missed without him. The frescos depicted stories about wars started by (go figure) a fight over women, monkey gods and a load of other things that I don’t remember now. That’s what I get for trying to blog a month and a half after I’ve been there. Bayon was the most memorable because of the giant smiling faces that adorned many of the temples (IPH) We carried on through out the day seeing one temple after another in the oppresive heat of the day until sunset. I was a bit disappointed with Ankor Wat because my expectations were so high. I had seen a completely rebuilt model at the World Religions Museum in Taiwan that was amazing! Climbing up and around the actual temple in ruins was a bit of a let down. But don’t get me wrong, the temple was still a sight to be seen and must have been breathe taking back in it’s day.
We ended the first day on top of a hilltop temple to watch the sunset. The drivers tried to tell us that there wasn’t going to be much of a sunset and that we should just go home. The sky was threatening, but I insisted that we go to the sunrise anyway. At the top it was beautiful, but the dark clouds were all over and a massive thunderstorm was brewing. Before the sun actually set, the rangers started to kick everyone off the temple. I refused to leave as one of the most spectacular sunsets was about to unfold before our eyes. When they asked me to leave I just pointed at the skyline and they relented. (IPH) I really wish I had my pics now so i could show you all the Hilltop temple sunset pictures I took as well as the threatening sky.
Tags: Ankor Wat, Travel
Kane
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