Day 52 Siem Reap

 Apologies for the appearance of yesterday's blog. Not sure why the bold text was there and Pete spent a good while trying to delete it but to no avail. 

Started the day with a lovely breakfast if pancakes and fresh fruit cooked by Mr Bun, our homestay host. Pete and I chilled for a while before venturing to the market where I bought some baggy trousers for the temple visit, Pete topped up the internet on the travel mobile and then had a haircut for $2. 

Back to the homestay for a few hours before venturing out again on bikes to purchase a ticket for the Angkor Wat temples for tomorrow. If you buy a ticket after 5pm for the next day you can that evening go and see the sunset by the temples. Unfortunately I picked the closest temple. Arrived at 5.20 and the temple area  closed at 5.30, so we viewed the sunset from our return cycle to the homestay. 

As well as breakfast, the homestay provides an evening meal. There are 6 of us staying here so with the family it's quite a gathering. The happy water came out again as well as a few beers so a pleasant evening was had by all. 





Comments

  1. CherylFebruary 28, 2024 at 12:15 AM

    Geoff loves to get his hair cut when abroad. Strange really as he cuts it himself when at home!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 50 Svay Leu (Boojie glamping pod)

Image
 In the Tour de France the penultimate day is the last day of racing proper with the final day just being a procession into Paris- racing done and celebrate the three hard weeks in the saddle. Today being our penultimate day to our final tour destination felt a little like that feeling - work done and look forward to that feeling of accomplishment on the final day's ride. Some random thoughts about Cambodia, the people are humble and many are poor but they are always welcoming, courteous and smiley. What I found staggering was every home we passed whether close to the road or some distance from it, we could hear the shouts of 'hello' from small children and upon our reply we would hear the sound of distant laughter. We have not figured out how they are aware of our approach but it is uncanny that we cannot go unnoticed- maybe they have better eyesight, hearing or even sense of smell but they always spot the westerner and send us on our way smiling at their beautiful smiles ...
Read more

Day 51 Siem Reap took us into Siem Reap and out again to our digs on the outskirts of the city. We were tired and was getting grumpy as our route took us ever westwards and away fro Siem Reap. We literally finished up on the outer edge of Siem Reap down a dirt track not knowing if we were in the right place. My phone had stopped accessing the internet. We arrived, hot bothered, thirsty and hungry. We had tried to inform the Homestay of our change of plans but with no decent internet access we were unsure if our messages had got through. We were greeted by an elderly lady who quickly called her daughter- who spoke a very little English. She asked us to wait for Mr Nr Bung

Image
 We left at 12:30pm having had a relaxing breakfast and morning dip in the pool- that is me anyway. Jen decided to get up at 5 to cycle up a mountain to see the sunrise- an 11 mile round trip. Not a problem as today was an easy 12km to our next planned stay in the nearby village Homestay.  Things didn’t work out as planned, when we got to the Homestay that was very primitive and not the best accommodation, they began with a charge of $50 (including meals) we paid less than that at the boojie hotel yesterday. With some negotiations that came down to $25 but by which time we did not feel comfortable about staying as they had tried to rip us off. It was now 1pm and very hot. Should we stay and forget our principles or leave and take our chances - we decided to leave and cycle the 60 km to Siem Reap in the burning afternoon sun. Jen was worried as she had already put in some hard miles. We followed Komoot into Siem Reap unfortunately the road it took us on was restricted to those ...
Read more

Day 53 Angkor Wat

Image
 Temple Day!  I researched the numerous blogs on line and found a suggested cycle route for a day tour. The temples are quite far apart so we knew we would just see a few but hopefully we would remember them.  With another 36 degree heat looming, we left at 7.30am after Mr Buns scrumptious breakfast of pancake and fruit. Angkor Wat was our first stop. Built in the 12th century, and described as a hindu- Buddhist temple, it is huge and magnificent. Thousands come here each morning for sunrise, but not wanting the crowds or the early start, we found the numbers fine at this later time. After a chilled stroll around and a cold drink we cycled onto the next temple. All the temples we saw were subtly different in size, construction, level of condition and degree to which they had been restored. One in particular was known as the temple with trees growing out of it. We overheard one guide saying at this temple that if a seed takes root within the walls, this is now removed to p...
Read more