Day 7 – Siem Reap

December 31st 2008

Feeling much brighter today, we've arranged to meet our driver at 10am to take us to Angkor Thom, the fortified city, so a light breakfast at the hotel and we're on the road. The heat of yesterday has definitely dropped a little too so as we make our way along the bumpy roads the breeze could almost be considered cold – well not quite but it's a relief all the same.

Passing Angkor Wat for the 2nd time we head into Angkor Thom through the southern gate and about a mile or so later stop at Bayon, the main temple in the exact centre of the city. While it's showing it's age – at 800 years old we'll let it off – this is beginning to feel more like it, a labyrinth of passages and steps with, so the guidebook says, 216 faces of the King staring down at you everywhere you look. As we walk round can't help thinking that one day they'll stop people doing what we're doing now, they'll have to just to stop the stone from being worn away, feel lucky and guilty all at the same time...

A short walk passing by a huge stone Buddha and we're at Bauphuon - “the world's largest jigsaw puzzle”. On a much smaller scale, the layout of Bauphuon is similar to Angkor Wat, only problem is that during the mid 1900s the whole place was taken apart as weather/vegetation was steadily destroying the buildings, work stopped during the civil war and all records of the stones were lost. The task now is to rebuild the whole site from stones that were scattered over 10km sq. The French are backing it and according to their sign work will be completed in September 2009, hmmm, je ne croix pas.

Back to our driver, who seems to be able to pick us out of a crowd at 50 yards, and a short hop to 2 terraces – Terrace of the Elephants and Terrace of the Leper King, the former of which is 300m long and would've been where the King watched parades from, all very impressive.

Driving again and out of Angkor Thom, passing by Ta Keo, to get to Ta Promh. Apparently used as a set for Tomb Raider, this place is remarkable by the ravages of nature that have taken such a tight hold on much of the masonry. Like Bayon, another labyrinth of passageways although without the steps, we find a quiet corner to study the guidebooks and have a rest. Being a bit slow on the uptake it hits me that this whole area is simply a vast city with all the non religious buildings taken out. In Bangkok, the Wat's were on almost every corner, if you took out all the hotels/shops etc then you'd be left with something like we have here in Angkor, and as only the religious buildings were made of stone these are the ones that were left. Angkor was apparently a thriving metropolis of 1m people when London was a town of 50,000, so it's all making sense now...

We ask our driver to take us to the museum – without being specific this could've meant 1 of 2 places, the Land Mine Museum or the Angkor Museum, and we get the latter. Unfortunately our driver can't park right outside so we have to fix a time for him to collect us and ultimately we don't really give ourselves enough time to enjoy this place properly, but the gallery of 1,000 Buddhas is worth the entrance fee alone.

Back to the hotel and we bid farewell to our driver. $20 for today, a 5 hour personal taxi service, excellent.

As it's still only mid afternoon we head down to Bar Street for some late lunch, which is at the other end of this small town so is a good excuse to simply see what goes on here. We have tickets for the Hotel's New Year's Eve party tonight, which appear to have come as part of our booking, it's going to be a toss up between here and Bar Street (the band are murdering Europe's The Final Countdown while soundchecking so maybe it will be Bar St) either way I'm expecting a more subdued New Year's Eve than normal as we fly off to Vietnam tomorrow.