Following another long bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap we arrived at our very cool guesthouse, Bou Savy. Siem Reap is quite a cool town with a busy nightlife. There is a street in the very centre of the town called ‘Pub Street’ which is strangely enough filled with pubs and restaurants.
The next day we hired bikes ( the kind with pedals) and set off to the Angkor Temples complex which is the only reason millions of tourists swarm to Siem Reap every year. After paying $20 each in at the gates we looked at the map and chose the ‘mini-route’ around the temples. This involved about 20km of cycling if you include the cycle there from the guesthouse. Around Angkor I was impressed with the beauty of the place. It was like a massive national forest park with lakes, huge trees and lots of animals roaming free and making lots of noise.
Some of the temples were fairly impressive too but not impressive enough to cycle that far around and not worth $20 each when your on a tight budget.
The main temples to see are Angkor Wat and Bayon. These are by far the most impressive and largest. Angkor Wat reaches to over 65m high at it’s highest point. What was even more unfortunate and disappointing on the day we visited was that there was construction works going on at both Angkor Wat and Bayon when we were there so this severely limited photo opportunities.
Saying that, I am glad we went and it’s one thing I can tick off the list.
Next stop Battambong.
R.
