Up at 4am for sunrise at Ankor Wat....what a beautiful, peaceful way to start the day....apart from the other 400 people also enjoying the serenity! We watched the sunrise over Ankor Wat temple and then headed off for some breakfast. Loving the fact that Cambodia was once a French colony and they havn't lost the art of baking a baguette.
After breakfast we headed out for a 5 hour walk around some of the other temples which are enclosed in a 203 acre compound. Did I mention that it was 42 degrees?? SOOOOO HOT! We did get to have a look at the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed with Angelina Jolie....quite amazing to see the trees growing out of and all over the temples. It was also really cool being able to walk through buildings that were built in the 12th century. The guide was VERY thorough...I don't think he could tell that we were all dying in the heat & he took great delight in explaining what every elephant carving & stone monument meant while all we wanted to do was find an icecream stand & some shade! Some of the temples are under repair & it was shocking to see the workmen climbing all over the scaffolding with powertools...in barefeet!!
In the very last temple, we had all hit our limit when we came across a little, old buddhist monk. He was tying red ribbons around everyone's wrists, rubbing them & then blowing on them, all the while quietly chanting to himself. He was banishing all our evil demons.....for some reason he worked on Andrew's wrist for about 3 times as long as everyone else!!
In the afternoon we headed back to the posh pool to cool off. Got back to the hostel at about 5pm, thought I might have a little nanna nap before dinner......woke up at 7.30 the next morning!
Next was a taxi to the bus station and a 7 hour bus ride on a local bus to Phnom Penh. When we arrived we headed down to FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) - a popular ex-pat hang out for 2 for 1 cocktails & a beautiful view of the sunset over the Mekong River. It was a really nice, balmy night & we were all chatting away when we looked down on the road below us and saw an elephant wandering along the road.....as you do!
From FCC we moved to Friends Restaurant - a non-profit restaurant that rehabilitates street kids & offers them the chance to be trained in hospitality. Great food & service! Then we made the unfortunate mistake of heading to "The Heart Of Darkness", a local nightclub. This started off with a fairly "brisk" pat down by the enthusiastic bouncer, then a small issue with a security guard who didn't like that we moved a tall vase on the table about 6 inches along so that the conversation didn't have to go through the flowers! I spose we should have taken the hint & called it a night but instead it turned into a bit of a piss up & Andrew spent most of the next day paying for it!!
Morning took us to the S21 prison & killing fields, a legacy of the Khmer Rouge & Pol Pot's regime. A very sombre place full of really graffic images of the genocide suffered by the Cambodians...not something easily stomached let alone if you are hung over. At the killing fields there is a buddhist stupa filled with the human skulls of some of the victims....approximately 20 metres high. This is also the site of many mass graves. Very sad.
When we arrived back from the killing fields, Andrew went to bed while the girls all went for a nice lunch. Later in the day we braved the Russian markets...an eye opening under cover market offering "real" designer clothes and various other souvineers. It was fun having a bit of a haggle though.
Next morning we left at 7am for another local bus ride across the border to Vietnam. Immigration was abit slow....we waited almost an hour in the heat. Kinda the same as Thailand, there is no gambling in Vietnam so at both the entry & exit points for Cambodia we saw heaps of massive casinos (kinda like mini Vegas) where Thai or Vietnamese locals come on weekends to gamble & party! Weird!
Will definitely need to come back to Cambodia to spend some more time soaking up the culture & atmosphere. A week just wasn't enough!
