Flew from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap in the morning and was in the taxi heading to our hotel by lunchtime. When I realised that our taxi was following a 4WD with a mokey on a lead sitting on the roof (South East Asia's not a great place to be an animal lover in, unless by 'love', you mean 'eat'), I knew we were in for a fun/crazy time. (Apologies for crap quality photo - taken through window of taxi in a hurry - better to have some blurry loch-ness monster-type evidence than none at all).
Like the masochistic tourists that we are, my brother and I checked into our hotel and hit the Angkor temple circuit within an hour of touching down in Siem Reap. [For those who are a little blurry on place names (like I was), Siem Reap is a town in Cambodia - it is also the gateway town to the Angkor temple complex which was done around the 9th-13th centuries. Angkor Wat is just one of the temples within the Angkor complex which covers a pretty vast area].
One of my Saigon mates is a photographer who is a bit of a pro at avoiding the tourists at Angkor - which, providing you have the right advice, was remarkably easy to do. It just involved us getting up at ridiculous times of the day - those who know me know that '5am start' is not in my vocabulary - but that's what we did on 3 consecutive days.
Between my brother and I we took god knows how many photos of the temples (more than a CD's worth!) so I won't torture you with them all - much better versions are available on postcards and coffee table books.
...but that said I can't resist doing a few of em' and a few 'Mad Hatter TM' piccys from the back of a motorbike (I'm honestly not sure how I ended up with this transport fetish - not healthy at all).
So! Let's start with the classic 'tree in temple' shot from Ta Prohm - a super atmospheric temple complex that is infested with tourists at all times other than the sneaky time we went. For a better shot just look at the cover of the Lonely Planet for Cambodia ;-)
Followed by another 'tree in temple' shot from Ta Som temple (at least I think it was Ta Som - after 3 days they all tend to blur into one a bit!).
...and a few 'between temple' scenery shots.
And a few shots of Angkor Wat itself:
...and some of the very funky Apsara carvings within Angkor Wat.
This place, called Preah Khanh (excuse spellink) was one of my favourites - hardly any tourists and literally falling over in places but absolutely spectacular - I just love how nature every now and then says 'right - you've had your fun, i'll take that back now thank you' :-)
We were at Preah Khanh near dusk and these two, ridiculously cute kids (Cambodia specialises in em') came tootling past us on their way to visit one of the guards with their cute, furry god-only-knows-what-creatures on their shoulders.
But this kid with a football up his shirt at Ta Som temple also gave them a run for their money in the cute stakes.
All templed out yet? Well by Day 3 we were in danger of getting temple fatigue so we hired a tuk tuk guy who said he was 21 but looked about 10 to take us to two places 30km and 50km out of Angkor respectively.
The first stop, Banteay Srei, is about 1 hour's drive away and ridiculously over-touristed from about 7.30am onwards so, mad sods that we are, we headed there for before 7am - would have been earlier except for the flat tuk tuk tire on the way.
At that time of day my vision is a little blurry and I think my camera was feeling empathetic - but I like the colours in these anyway (and no blog is complete without a rice fields and water buffalo shot in it somewhere).
Banteay Srei is tiny compared to most of the other temple complexes but is beautifully carved and looked great at the time of day we got there.
After which, it was time to hit the unpaved road section of our trp - and to wish that we had taken motorbikes instead of a tuk tuk (which we nearly jack-knifed on a bridge) as we spent an hour travelling on a diabolical dirt road that turned our back's into a chiropracter's wet dream.
But what awaited us at the end, after a seriously sweaty 1/2 hour uphill hike through what looked like New Zealand bush, was well worth it. Some devoted loon carved an entire river bed - it goes on for at least 500 metres and is quite amazing - and the waterfall cool-off afterwards was very welcome!
OK - enough torture - I guess this is the digital equivalent of the much dreaded holiday snap slideshow - but at least this one is optional - if you made it to the end I am impressed!
Next stop was HCMC for an evening of clothes washing and sleep and then we headed up to Hanoi to do a little Ha Long Bay-ing which will be posted up asap...and yes, I promise to do shorter posts with less pictures from now on!
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