Siem Reap & Angkor Wat

It's hard to believe that the trip is nearly over, but we arrive at our final destination after a reasonably comfortable 6 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh. The last hotel is a very pleasant block of rooms around an inner courtyard and pool, and just a 10 minute walk from the very centre of the town (pub street!). Our plans for a early night are slightly impeded by a malfunctioning air conditioner, necessitating maintenance visits and an eventual room change, but luckily we get a good night's sleep before we embark on one of the toughest (and definitely the hottest!) sightseeing days of the whole trip.

The main attraction of Siem Reap is the nearby Angkor Wat, probably one of the most famous religious sites in the world. Built in the first half of the 12th century as a Hindu temple, and gradually converted into a Buddhist shrine over the following 50 years, the temple is the symbol of Cambodia and is even depicted on the national flag. We're not quite masochistic enough to get up at 5am for the sunrise tour, so at 8.30am we climb into our hired remorque tuktuk for a day of temple visiting. It's already 30 degrees and humid, so the breeze in the open carriage is very welcome for the 30 minute drive to the ticket office and then to Angkor Wat itself.

From the parking area it's over 1km to walk along the entrance road, take the bridge over the moat, go through the gatehouse and along the causeway to the temple, all via a completely exposed pathway with no shade. By the time we arrive in puddles of sweat, we're almost too hot to appreciate what we're seeing, but a few minutes sitting in the shade allows us to cool down enough to enjoy looking around. The site is absolutely incredible, with a huge amount of corridors, courtyards, stairs, and towers to explore. Despite the steady stream of arrivals, it's big enough to find plenty of spots with no other people once you move past the main entranceway.

Once we arrive back at the tuktuk the driver takes one laughing look at us before diving into a cooler for ice-cold bottles of water. Our only consolation is that 90% of the tourists look just as sweaty as we do... although possibly not as red-faced. We head onwards to our next site as the temperature continues to rise. While Angkor Wat is the name everyone knows, the entire Angkor Archeological Park extends over 400 square kilometres and contains multiple buildings and examples of art from the Khmer Empire. It's just a short drive to our next stop in the walled city of Angkor Thom, at the Bayon Temple.

This site is smaller and luckily much more accessible, as our driver drops us off right at the gate. There are far fewer people here and the style of the temple is very different, consisting of tight galleries and terraces rather than the open courtyards of Angkor Wat. However it's still impressive and perhaps more enjoyable on a human scale, particularly as the distinctive feature of this temple is the many huge carvings of the smiling face of Buddha on each side of the towers.

It's another scorching walk past the Baphuon temple and the Terrace of the Elephants (not as impressive as it sounds) to where our driver is parked under a tree, so after more bottles of water are produced we agree to a stop for lunch. Our fantastic, excellent, amazing driver (whose name is Mr. Top!) takes us to the only restaurant in the vicinity with air conditioning, so we finally get to cool almost all the way down. As a bonus, we also have possibly the best fried rice of the entire trip.

After lunch, we head to the Ta Prohm temple site, with the temperature now hovering around 36 degrees, with a real feel of 42 due to the high humidity. This temple was built in a similar style to Bayon (although without the faces), but it was abandoned in the 15th century and much of it has crumbled into the jungle. It's famous for having been used as a filming location for the movie Tomb Raider, and parts of it feel like a movie set, particularly the huge trees growing out of the ruins which look too picturesque to have happened naturally! It's incredibly atmospheric and a truly unique experience, but at this stage the heat is getting to us so it's time to slog back along the sandy path to the parking area and head back to the hotel after a brilliant day.

After the temples and all of the recent travelling we're fairly wiped out so our last day in Cambodia starts fairly quietly with a long lie-in followed by a swim and a couple of poolside cocktails. Siem Reap is absolutely hopping as it's Saturday night and there's a full moon party happening on Pub Street, but we manage to avoid the crowds by crossing the river to a nearby craft beer bar. It's also the night of the Ireland v Wales match so after dinner we head out to find somewhere to watch it. It turns out that Siem Reap is the only city in the world that doesn't have an Irish Pub, but weirdly, it does have a Welsh one! Luckily the Irish supporters outnumber the Welsh supporters (4 vs 2!) but as one of the Welsh ladies is very opinionated it's an even more satisfying win than usual. Unfortunately we let the win and the $1 beers go to our head and stay out much later than planned, meaning we only get 4 hours sleep before the alarms go off for the start of our epic 40 hour trip home!