#angkorcomplex

The journey from Kampot to Siem Reap was so stupidly long and frustrating that I don't even want to talk about it. It took us 11 hours to cover the 450 km and a picture of the Cambodian National Highway will explain why.

I'm not even joking that's really it.

Anyway we got to Siem Reap, eventually, and settled in a hostel by the night market and pub street. They messed up our booking and the room was a state and it was hot and we were tired so I kicked a wall and bruised my toenail. Pretty badly, in fact. In my defence though I wanted to kick the door but I misjudged the distance between me and the target. Which explains why my football career never really kicked off (pun intended). Anyway that's why you may notice a big white bandage on my big toe in the pictures and no, no close-up of the toenail because it is gross and also let's never talk about it again.

We spent our whole first day in SR planning our three-day of Tomb Raiding and by the end of the day we came up with our own itinerary so that we could enjoy the sites at their quietest. We got ourselves a Tuk-Tuk and a driver at the price we wanted, for the hours we wanted, to go where we wanted instead of following the pre-arranged routes they offer and we're glad we did so because we managed to beat the crowds at almost every stop.

We started with an hour drive to Banteay Srey, a smaller temple quite far from the most popular ones, dedicated to Shiva the Destroyer and home to some of the finest bass-reliefs in the Angkor complex.

We then drove back and started with some more popular sites: Banteay Kdei and Sras Srang.

Pre Rup and East Mebon came next followed by Ta Som, Neak Pean and Preah Khan.

We decided to stick around for sunset and picked the super popular spot Phnom Bakheng which wasn't bad or anything but not particularly spectacular either. Guess we're not really sunset junkies.

After 12 hours of exploring these magnificent temples we called it a day.

On our second day we got up super early and rushed to enjoy sunrise from outside Angkor Wat and it was wow!

When everyone drove back to their accommodation for breakfast we (and some others) entered Angkor Wat and managed to spend a couple of hours inside this beautiful site without too many people around. It was a wonderful visit and when we left we were really happy with our decision to tailor our own tour of the complex because our experience inside Angkor Wat itself was already more than we could have asked for.

Angkor Thom and what lies within its walls came next. Bayon was a tad busier than we liked but luckily we got to give it another go on day 3 and it was literally deserted then (yay!) whereas Baphuon, Phimeanakas, the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King were spot on although extremely tiring. 

After 10 hours of exploring we decided to head back and rest.

Day 3 started nice and early with the long-awaited Ta Prom, only this time there was no tuk-tuk taking us places and we had to rely on our own leg muscles and our cycling skills. Having left our hostel at dawn we got here at 7:30AM and enjoyed a few hours inside Ta Prom grounds and left right when the big crowds approached.

We decided to spend the rest of the day cycling around the area and after a more fortunate and extremely quiet visit to Bayon we stopped for some chill-out time outside the main gates of Angkor Wat, not quite ready to say goodbye to this amazing place yet.

On our way back we stumbled upon a bunch of monkeys chilling by the side of the road. Then some guys who also pulled over started feeding them fruit and soon more monkeys came. Like a lot more. While we were taking pictures some of them monkeys took over our bikes and wouldn't let go.

Now we didn't get our rabies shots before this trip so we decided to let them do their thing and not bother them while they tried to go through our bags looking for food, or money or drugs or whatever it was they wanted but when they finally let go of our bikes we hit the road again and made it back to the hostel.

At night we went to the Phare Circus, a short drive from our hostel where we enjoyed an amazing hour long show put together by a young and extremely talented crew whose lives have changed for the better thanks to this organisation whose mission is to provide gainful employment to Cambodian youth from difficult social and economic backgrounds.

On our last night we met up for dinner and drinks with Adam whom we traveled part of North Thailand with and who was also in SR for a couple of days and it was great to meet him again apart from when he decided to eat a tarantula. That was gross.