Angkor Wat Siem Reap

Hey all 2 of you that read this... apologies for not updating in awhile (especially sorry to you mum, since you claim see if I've posted every morning - much appreciated). We like to keep ourselves busy so I often forget that I have a duty to blog!

Anywhooligans, we went to Siem Reap last weekend and visited the almighty Angkor Wat. The temples we visited were worth of their World Wonder titles as their serenity and architectural elegance leave you somewhat breathless.

So this is how it went...

Erica and Angkor

It's a friday night and we are looking forward to some hours of sleep before our 4am wake up call to see the Angkor Wat sunrise. We finish dinner early and head back to our inexpensive hotel room. All seems well until we lay in bed. The night was restless as the lack of aircon power left us sweaty and the buzzing mosquitos created the horrible dilemma of taking off the blankets to cool us down or protecting ourselves from unbearable mozzie bites. Might I add we were all pleased to find a cockcroach inhabiting our dodgy bathroom. That aside, waking up at 4am was easy and well worth it.

The sunrise was perfect. We ran past other tourists, racing against time to catch the sky's warm reds and purples. Finally we found a nice spot (quite dangerous though) on a ledge of the structure facing the three peaks of Angkor Wat set against a spectrum of colours. Erica and I fiddled with our dslr cameras and managed to take some nice photos.

We had hired a tuk tuk for the whole day, visiting Bayon (temple of faces) as well as the temple with huge trees (seen in Tomb Raider). We had a great time taking jumping photos, sitting on a donkey (Erica), practicing the catwalk down the long hallways and stone paths, pretending to be on a tomb raider mission, breakdancing at the picture spots (victor), getting lost and separated from the group, wearing headscarves to shield the sun, finding out we had the worst shirt tans possible, feeling tired and realising it was only 10am, taking turns listening to the extremely detailed tour guide, fearing for my life as I climbed the ominous steps up to the higher platforms, arriving back at our hotel rooms and having a relaxing ciesta.

We went out later that night hoping on the promising travel guide descriptions of Siem Reap night life. What we found was somewhat disappointing, however, the group is always determined to have a great night - and some of us decided to bring the party to Siem Reap by taking over the dancefloor at a club called The Temple. That included Ida Knutsen, the star of the night - who displayed some never before seen dancemoves. The group got a little too excited when Justin Bieber's 'Baby' song started playing (to which the lyrics have been massacred by Will and Max), as it has been one of the songs of the trip. Along with other quality hits such as the Cambodian 'I'm So Sorryyy', Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream'. The bus ride home included hitting a goat, speeding, pitstopping at a restaurant with boiled turtles and listening to repetitive Khmer music...everyday things really.

Siem Reap was a fantastic experience and visiting Angkor Wat has made appreciate Cambodia even more - and it's keen eye for tranquil beauty.

On a random note..
The Cambodge group has become CS-obsessed. CS (counter strike) has taken over our lives and some of us even skip teaching just to lan somemore....just kidding! But we do like to have to occasional lanning session..and even indulged in a real life CS game this weekend - all in a day's hard work. The weekend has been very relaxing, apart from a fun night out on Friday. Many of the peeps have university applications to do so we spent a few nights in ordering burritos and whatnot. Mr. Morley came to visit and we all went out for two lovely dinners in the last few days.

Tiny Toones is currently moving locations to a new and improved school with a much bigger dancefloor. It's the end of September and every start of the month the timetables in Cambodian schools change. This is quite frustrating as a teacher as the children who had class in the morning suddenly switch to the afternoon and vice versa. Ah well, being teachers here we have learnt to adapt to their school systems!

On Wednesday I'll be flying back to Singapore to eat some sushi, go shopping, bathe in hot water, watch tv, maybe see my family..maybe not...joking! - I miss them all very much and am looking forward to spending time with them before another two months of Phnom Penh. I hope this uber long post is enough compensation for my lack of posting and I promise not to do it again!

Thanks to anyone else who reads my blog too, all 1 of you!

Something you have to see sometime in your life! Paradise, is that you?