We went to Siem Reap for the weekend. Siem Reap is very famous for Angkor Wat which is the largest religious monument in the world! It used to be a Hindu Temple and was then changed to a Buddhist Temple. It was built in the 12th Century. There is actually a picture of Angkor Wat on the Cambodian flag so that shows how big a deal it is here! Cambodians are incredible proud of it and people travel to Cambodia just to see the ruins of the temples. We got the bus leaving Phnom Penh at 8pm and we arrived at Siem Reap at 3am. We were hoping to sleep on the bus but the ride was too bumpy. We dropped our bags at the Guest House, and then headed out at 4.30am to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. That’s what people do here! There was a crowd of people there all waiting to get the perfect photographs of the sunrise at Angkor Wat. It was too cloudy so we didn’t really see much sun but it was still very impressive. Here are some pictures:
We went back to the Guest House afterwards to catch a few hours of sleep and then had breakfast and headed out for the tour. Some of my friends were doing the 3 day tour, but I was just doing 1 day. There is only so much looking at temples that I can take. Especially with the hot weather. It makes you get exhausted so much quicker! We hired a tour guide and driver for the day and set off. The 1st stop was back to Angkor Wat. It really is huge, you can get lost in there so easily! The detail everywhere is very impressive. It took around an hour and half just to walk around it. Here are some pictures.
After that, we went to see a few more of the temples – Bayon, Ta Prohm where Tomb Raider was filmed, Ta Keo, and Banteay Kdey.
After the tour, we were exhausted! We went back to the Guest House to relax and then went out to the Night Market for some shopping and then dinner.
On the Sunday, we went to see the floating villages which were quite cool. We went on a boat tour for a couple of hours. There are 4,000 people who live in the village, most of them work in fishing. They have a floating secondary school, and even floating restaurants! I couldn’t help but think how simple life must be there! So cut off from the rest of the world! No internet or electricity, just fishing, swimming, eating, and relaxing!