Well, the first morning in Siem Reap was a bit of a shock to the system, we ventured out into the wild unknown to find that there was just about everything here that you had missed for a while, western food, different beers, wine, whisky ( you see the pattern yet ? ) but the amount of tourists here was just about intolerable,  there was just about every conceivable nationality walking the streets, ( think maybe I have spent too much time in jungles and extremely remote areas ) so we joined them and spent the whole day wandering around seeing what there was to see. Unfortunately, it was nothing exciting, just lots of shops, massage parlours ( no, not that type ), restaurants and big fish tanks ! The fish tanks, strangely enough, have lots of small fish in ! The idea is that you sit round the edge of these fish tanks and dangle your feet in them and the fish eat all the dead skin off your feet, not a nice thing for the poor fish, but plenty of people were giving it a go and were enjoying it. We ate in a lovely place and ate traditional Khmer food, went back to the hostel via a mini market and picked up some red wine and peanuts for desert.

The following morning we decided to attend a cookery class, to learn how to make some of this wonderful tasty local food, so at 10am we showed up and were joined by 4 other girls, an Italian, 2 Germans and an Ozzie girl who also wanted to learn, so, first thing was to choose what you wanted to make, then a trip round the local market to buy your ingredients, then back to class where you were given an apron and a hat and then we were ready to start.

I made fresh spring rolls with prawns followed by prawn “Amok”, a traditional Khmer dish, it was a very interesting course lasting four hours, but the best bit was sitting at your table with everyone else and eating all the food we had made (with a large beer ). Of course, after all that eating, it was time for a siesta. Later on we decided to be up early in the morning to go and see Angkor Wat.

5.30am, (silly o clock)we arose, got our act together and strode off in search of transport to get us the 8km to Angkor Wat, within about 15 minutes, we came upon the ideal thing, pushbikes ! ( nice baskets )

So after handing over our $1 for the hire fee for the day, we set off down the long road to our first destination, and also getting caught in a quick downpour ( which is quiet fun as its warm ). It costs $20 for a one day pass to see the temples around Siem Reap, but to be honest, I only wanted to see two of them, one of the things about travelling south east Asia is that there are temples everywhere. We arrived at Angkor Wat as the sun was rising, and seen this amazing place firstly shrouded in a fine mist and then gradually getting basked in the sun.

 

An absolute must to see if your ever anywhere near, it is so big, and the whole thing is surrounded by the biggest moat i have ever seen ! We headed on down a straight road to see the next temple, Angkor Thom, this one was in a worse state of repair, but it was equally as mind blowing, we spent a good couple of hours or so wandering around this one,

Now, templed out yet again, we rode back to town, I dropped my bike off as soon as I could ( now I know why I prefer motorbikes )and headed back. The next few days were spent just messing about, using the rooftop gym at the hostel, eating, drinking and walking but eventually craving the peace and quiet again, so booked a bus journey to a place called Battambang.

The morning of the 11-11-11, we joined a bus load of people who were also heading for Battambang, and after around five hours, we arrived in what is supposed to be the second largest populated place in Cambodia, to me it was smaller than Carlisle ! But  an nice place nonetheless. We found a nice hotel for about £6.40 a night (£3.20 each).

We had a walk around before dark, then decided it was time to eat, we chose an upstairs restaurant as there was a street wedding going on below, so while we enjoyed our food, we also watched the wedding reception/karaoke/line dancing sort of thing that seemed to be the norm at a local wedding.

Next day we spent most of the day walking around the parks, wats etc. and  then in the afternoon we decided to take a tuk tuk to the “killing caves” a reminder of the horrendous atrocities inflicted by the Khmer rouge. These caves were used by the Khmer rouge to get rid of over 10,000 people, men, women and children, by throwing them, blindfolded and bound, through a hole in the top of the caves, into the bottom, some 30 metres below to die a slow death.

It was quite a harrowing experience, there were cages full of skulls and bones from some of the remains found,

There were other cages which held the remains of children and some of their clothes, but I couldn’t bring myself to photograph these.

After this visit, we descended back down the mountain to witness a wonderful sight just as it was getting dark, thousands upon thousands of bats started emerging from a cave hole in the side of the mountain, it was like a long black ribbon swirling around above you then heading off in the direction of the lake to drink and feed on mosquitoes’ we stood gobsmacked for a while until it was too dark to see anymore, then jumped into our tuk tuk to head off back to town for supper.