Days 1-3: Sien Reap and the temples of Angkor

Siem Reap - Friday 17/12

Well, firstly apologies for the delay in posting an entry to let everyone know how we are going - it's been a hectic first couple of days and by the evening we tend to collapse into bed rather than update blogs !

The trip up was uneventful for the girls and Chris - everything went to schedule and we met up with Julie at Siem Reap airport on Thursday morning. We spent the afternoon settling, with an orientation walk around the town and then a nice long swim in the hotel pool, followed by dinner at the Red Piano ... this was the restaurant that Angelina Jolie reportedly enjoyed while filming Tomb Raider in Sien Reap.

After collapsing into bed, we were up bright and early for our first full day. First up was the buddhist temple of Angkor Thom, built over 40 years starting in 1180 AD. The first thing that strikes you about these amazing temples is that they were built nearly a thousand years ago, yet so much of the structures are still standing.

Our highlight at Angkor Thom was an elephant ride from the gate into the main temple - most of the temples have huge grounds and are surrounded by moats to protect them. The walk from the gate to the temple is often 500 meters or more, so the ride was much appreciated ! And the elephants enjoyed their reward at the end of the ride of a feed of bananas from the girls.

As our tour guide Mr John kept reminding us, there are 1080 listed temples in Cambodia - and no doubt many more not listed, so it's hard to describe every one. So we'll just let the photos we upload give everyone an idea of the temple structures ... although the scale of some of these buildings are hard to capture in a photo.

We enjoyed lunch at the Singing Tree, one of the small restaurants in a lane way run by a local co-operative. One of the confronting elements of eating in the lane ways is the stream of hawkers who come past trying to sell things - many of these are kids or men who are land mine victims and have lost legs or arms. One of Julie's "new friends" is Sophan, a 17 year old boy who lost a leg from a land mine while gathering fire wood for his family - he was disowned by his family, but is now sponsored to go to school in the morings. He then spends the afternoon selling books in the streets to earn money to live on. While Sophan's story is tragic (as it is for all land mine victims), they all just get on with life and do the best they can.

Our afternoon visit of the day was to the Ta Prohm temple, which is famous for having some of the key scenes from Tomb Raider filmed at it. The Ta Prohm temple was neglected and unused for a very long time, allowing the forest trees to seed and grow. Some of the trees straddle the temple walls with their long roots reaching down the walls into the ground.

Dinner was early and then crash for the night ...