Sam, Dave and Jack on tour in Asia 2007

Friday, March 16, 2007

Cambodia

Hi, we are now in Cambodia. We got a bus overland to the border from Bangkok that took about 4 hours and cost about 4 pounds...which wasnt bad. Then we had to get a taxi to get to Siem Reap province, which is where all the Temples of Angkor are. That was an absolute killer, us 3 were in the back because we found some other english guy at the border to share it with. The roads are the worst we have ever seen. We passed about 5 people changing their tires because the road was so bumpy and rocky they had blown. We finally got in the evening after travelling overland all day and the hotel was good so it wasn't all that bad.

The 1st day we went to see a land mine museum where a man who used to be in the army has now devoted his life to clearing land mines from all the things that had happened during the vietnamese war, Pol Pot's reign and the Khymer Rouge. He clears about 300 mines a day and there are supposed to be 7-10 million mines still left in Cambodia. It was good to go and see because at one time Cambodia was all so different.




The next day we hired push bikes for the 3 days that were going to visit the Temples of Angkor. Then we set off for the famous Angkor Wat, built around the 9th Century. It took us all of 40 minutes to get around it, but the architecture was amazing.


The following day we went to see Angkor Thom, which was far larger than Angkor Wat, similar to a small city. The architecture was quite similar, its just that theres more of it and it shows different things. Plus it has the Bayon, a temple with many 4 sided faced statues.








On our last full day we went to visit Ta Prohm, which is more famously known as the place where the Tomb Raider film was filmed. Throughout the whole of the temple huge tree roots had over run the ruins and attached them selves to most of the ancient walls. They are'nt doing the allready crumbling temple any good, but they are a great sight to see.