Cambodia, Siam Reap

November saw us flying off again to Asia, this time we were touring with APT on the Mekong River.
The aim of travelling to Cambodia, is working towards ticking of our bucket list, and that is to see the 7 wonders of the world.
We are aware that this list is always being updated, but we are following the original listing and on that list is Siem Reap and the temple Angkor Wat.
After this little adventure, the only wonder to be achieved will be Petra, Jordan, all booked for November, 2020.
After a number of flights and stops in Canberra, Singapore and then Siem Reap, we arrived flight weary and was transported to our beautiful hotel, the Sofitel to have a little rest.
After a small nap, we set of to explore what Siem Reap has to offer, walking down to the local shopping area, it quickly became apparent that Cambodia is a lot poorer than its sister country Vietnam.
In saying this everything was so much cheaper and the local people love US dollars.
DH was happy, he was back to his US$1 beer.
I want to share, just a few photos from our stopover in Singapore airport, an airport that we have frequented quite often and is forever changing. We had a 2 hour stopover, so watched a movie and had fun walking around the terminal and seeing the wonderful gardens on display.

Singapore airport.

Our first night we visited one of the top restaurant in Siem Reap, that was recommended by APT, we were not disappointed.

 The Square 24

 Decor inside

 After our meal we had a short walk to Pub Street, the happening street in Siem Reap, a wonderful hive of activity.

 Sculptures in our hotel.
Our first night was free, before we joined and met our tour group the next day.

 In the afternoon, we visited first of the three temples, I need to add that there are multiple temples in Siem Reap, but we are just visiting the major three, this afternoon. The Elephant temple, Bayon and Ta Phrohm.

First up was The Bayon Temple from the 12th century.

 Some little kittens, quite tame.

Me on top of the Bayon Temple.

 On our way to the Elephant Temple, we joined into some local activity and I had a chance to harvest some rice.

The rice waiting to be bashed so it can be collected.

 Our next temple was Ta Prohm Temple, most famous for the tomb raider movie.

I might add, this was my favourite, although the tree trunks is ruining the temple structure and foundation, you can only be awed by the act of nature.

 Long Banyon tree roots everywhere,

 A photo opportunity with DH

Look at the size of the tree roots.

 All through our hotel, are the lovely lotus flowers

 Each morning this lovely girl, folds hundreds of them and was kind enough to give me a demonstration of how to fold them and I also got to keep one as well.

The Cambodians are beautiful people.

The next morning at 4am, we were up to travel to Angkor Wat, to be institu for the sunrise. This temple is the highlight of our tour and the reason for travelling to Cambodia.

Let’s just say that we were not alone, there was hundreds of people doing the same thing, so it was a fight to find the best location to first view one of the 7 wonders of the world.

 First view from the lake.

 Nearly there!

 Inside Angkor Wat, yes we did climb these very steep 40 steps up to the very top and it was well worth it.

 I had a blessing from the monks

 Wild monkeys

Our walk back in daylight from Angkor Wat.

 Angkor Wat, design plan

 Our photo opportunity in daylight at Angkor Wat.

A very steep climb of 40 steps to the top of Angkor Wat, it was well worth the climb.

 A quick dip, back at our hotel, before our welcome dinner from APT in the hotel.

Our traditional Cambodian floor show before dinner. A fun night of meet and greet was had by all, it was a great night and we met a lot of people that we will be touring with.

In the afternoon, our optional tour was to ride a quad bike through the countryside in Siem Reap, it was one of the most exhilarating rides that I have done in a long time, the tour operators tried to talk me into having a driver, but I chose to do it on my own and loved the thrill of the ride.

It was wonderful riding through the countryside, rice paddies and seeing village life as well as the water buffalos in the rice paddy fields.

 All set to go after our lesson.

 This is our group, fun was had by all.

The mask was for the dust from the road, we did get quite dirty.
In the evening after our tour, we had to choose which restaurant to dine at, there was seven on offer, as we had already dine at Square 24, we chose Marum, on the menu was beef with red ants that DH was very keen to try.

Look closely and you can see the red ants in the sauce and on the plate.
Marum restaurant also had a recyclable shop that sold unique goods from waste.
Our three course dinner was very enjoyable, and we got taken back to the hotel by tuk tuk.
This concludes our couple of days in Siem Reap, for tomorrow we drive 5 1/2 hours to Kampong Chan to board our cruise boat AMAlotus for 7 nights.
We depart at 0615hrs in the am.
More adventures to follow, next up our cruise story from the Mekong River.