December 5, 2006 Siem Reap, Cambodia

December 5, 2006
Siem Reap, Cambodia

Jackie and I woke up this morning (at 8:00) feeling rested and ready to attack the day. We headed down to the hotels breakfast buffet to meet up with the others. Breakfast was quite tasty. We were treated to some of the best fresh croissants that I have ever had. Everyone ate a lot of food!

After breakfast (9:00ish) we met up with our tuk-tuk drivers from the day before. We hired them for the entire day for only $15. We then spent almost the entire day cruising around the temples at Angkor.

Our first stop was Ka Som, a small temple in the northwest of Angkor. The drive from the hotel took about 30 minutes. We were all surprised by number of sellers that accosted us when we got off the tuk-tuk. We powered by them and made our way to the temple. It was awesome! The entryway had several large heads at carved at the top of the wall. Once inside there was a cool wall with a strangler fig growing out of it. After taking a lot of photos we left the temple, pushed our way through the vendors, and got back to the tuk-tuks.

We then discussed what temple to visit next. Our tuk-tuk drivers had some advice and talked us into doing the “Grand Tour” that would allow us to see most of the major sights.

Our next stop was the ruin of an old fountain. There were still several large pools with elaborate sculptures at the center. We walked around the pools and marveled at some of the ancient carvings. Still, the most memorable part of this stop occurred on the walk from the road to the fountains. As we were walking down the path, Jackie got excited and told me to watch out. Her exclamations made me alter my step. As it turns out, my sandal came down right on top of a tiny lizard! In her effort to save the lizard, Jackie startled me and was a key part in the lizard’s death. NOTE: Jackie has a different version of the story.

From there we continued on our way to the next temple, the west entrance of Preah Khan. This entrance is a long way from the main temple so we only spent a short time examining the remains. The coolest part of this entrance were the statues of people pulling a large snake. In Hindu mythology the snake would turn the tortoise, churning the sea of milk, causing the mountain to spew the honey of the gods (or something like that, right dad?)

Just before noon we got back in our tuk-tuks and headed to the main entrance of Preah Khan, an ancient religious university. The main entrance was not much more spectacular than the other entrance. Still, there were several very well preserved carvings. We also spotted a massive spider high above the main trail (it was one of the biggest I have ever seen).

The actual ruins of Preah Kahn were awesome. It was a very large and elaborate building. The hallways still had some of the stone furniture structures. Eventually we came to the main attraction of the ruin, the “hall of dances”. Apparently, this it was a hallway where the college students of ancient Khmer society shook their booties.

By the time we left Preah Kahn we were all starving. We stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall restaurant we found. As usual (in Thailand), the food was amazingly good and very cheap. Once everyone had eaten their fill we continued our tour of Angkor.

We headed for the largest section of Angkor, Angkor Thom. The building we (and everyone else) chose to visit was Bayon. It was easily the coolest place ever! The entire structure was filled with large stone faces. They were incredibly well preserved and awe-inspiring. We spent the next hour climbing through the ruins and taking numerous photos. We even snapped a shot holding the East Oregonian in front of one of the faces (for Jackie’s mom to send to the paper).

Our last stop was To Pram (or something like that). It was a cool area of ruins known for the incredibly number of strangler figs (Ficus altissima) that have grown to be part of the temple, some more than 500 years old! We explored the forested temple for quite a while. NOTE: we learned that a key scene in Tomb Raider was filmed at this temple.

When we finished with the fig temple we were exhausted. We decided to head back to the hotel for a little R&R (17:00). We rested in our room for a few hours. At 19:30 we met up in the lobby and headed out for the evening.

We found our tuk-tuk drivers and headed to Pub Street. We chose to eat dinner at the Red Piano. It was one of many bar/restaurants on the street. As we ate dinner rain started hammering down on the street. The monsoon was so strong and so abrupt that we were forced to move tables. As we waited for the rain to subside we consumed a few beers.

When the rain finally stopped we left the Red Piano for another bar. We each had a few beers (except Ju) and then headed back to the hotel in our tuk-tuks. It was surprisingly late by the time we got back to the room and into bed.