Templed out

We did a spot of sight seeing, after all that's what everyone does who comes to Cambodia. We have 5 million photos, but you'll be pleased to know, we have selected only a few of these. We are in Siem Reap, which is close to the Ankor Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage sight and rightly so. The Temples were built from sandstone 1200 - 800 years ago. We first visited them by accident on our tandem whilst on the way to the Landmine Museum. The Temples are only 8km from Siem Reap but the Landmine Museum is 37k, which we only discovered after cycling 15 km towards it! There are so many temples that it is difficult to go round them all on a tandem. We made what we thought was a good decision and hired a tuk tuk and a guide for 2 days. On the third day, we got back on the tandem and revisited our favourite places. The tandem was a lovely idea as not many Cambodians have seen one of these, so they were all laughing and pointing at us. The whole thing has been a great experience and highly recommended. Get yourselves over here and have a look.

Lots of the temples are now ruins, but this one still had the corridor intact with the roof still on. Pilgrims would meditate in the corridors before visiting the temple. Many of the corridors had stone carvings telling the stories of mythical or historic events. Each king, when he came to power would try and build a temple bigger and better than his predecessor in order to gain more approval from the gods (either Buddhist or Hindu, depending on which was in favour). The population of Ankor 1000 years ago was one million. Looking at how many temples there are, we don't think there was much unemployment.
This is Ta Prom which you all know, but don't realise it!
This is inside Ta Prom - ring any bells? This actual doorway was used in the film "Tomb Raider". Angelina Jolie played the part of Lara Croft and had all kinds of adventures in these temples. There is an Angelina cafe here and one of the bars has named a cocktail after her as it was allegedly her favourite hangout when they were filming here. (Cointreau, lime juice and soda - yummy). This temple is around 800 years old and the trees growing out of it are mere saplings at three hundred years old.

The Bayon Temple, one of the most famous here. It has 54 towers, each with 4 faces on pointing north, south, east and west.
Believe it or not, 1000 years ago this was the hospital. One of the kings built 102 hospitals and provided free health care to all citizens. Fore runner of the NHS. This hospital may be in better nick than some of ours (any comments?!!).

To get the best views, you had to climb up the stairs to the top to see the higher layers. Yes, these really were as steep as they look. Ok if you have size three shoes, but coming down you have to go sidewards. Going up you have too go on all fours. Some of the temples have several layers representing the different layers of heaven. Not sure if we got to heaven or paradise but it was pretty cool up there. View from the top. Could be Nirvana or paradise?
Ankor Wat, probably the most famous temple, surrounded by a moat. It is currently under restoration so our other pics of this have scaffolding all over.

Look closely and you'll see this is a little boy fast asleep, with a wild monkey cuddled up fast asleep next to him. We crept past them in order not to wake them up.
We met a couple of lovely Irish girls both called Laura, which was quite handy. We had a great evening drinking jugs of beer and cocktails. Laura is a big football fan. Guess which one? This photo was taken in "Ankor What?" bar .

We christened these kittens Laura and Laura. They had been adopted by the Buddhist monks in Ankor Wat.
We have started to get into this hammock thing. It's pretty cool really, especially when it's raining and you are on your tandem.
All hammocked out! Look at the Buddha belly - who says Garry is losing weight?

Siem Reap is famous for its sculputes, normally buddhas. This fly is made from old guns!!
We've tried to get photos of massively overloaded vehicles. By Cambodian standards, this one is half full. This is the local bus!
Again, a local bus still only half loaded. We have seen them loaded with motorbikes and trailers on top.
A fearsome crocodile
Raffles number 3. This time in Siem Reap drinking a femme fatale - a Jackie Kennedy favourite. It was happy hour and we managed to finance this visit without alerting the IMF!

If you've read the blog "answers", you may recall that the IMF heavies are looking for us as we still owe them $53.75 cents. This is the last known photograph of their leader. She is thought to be travelling under the pseudonym of Caroline Hayes, last known location she was being held hostage by a pig in Australia. Has anyone seen her recently?

We have decided to stay here for a while and have volunteered for some work for a charity called Mad For Good, helping local communities with medical and educational projects.

We will let you know how we get on.

Bye for now

Alison and Garry