100k in a tuk-tuk

Wednesday February 6th

Today was the long outer tour of the temples. It involves a lot more time in a tuk-tuk, about 100k I reckon. On any other day this would have been an amazing day, with an absolutely fabulous set of ruins, but after Ankor Wat and Thom yesterday, it was a bit of an anti climax.

Interestingly Li, the tuk-tuk driver (same as yesterday - its just easier to keep using the same guy) was wearing a helmet, not sure if it was a response to the near miss yesterday, or to keep his face from being recognised by the stall holders who witnessed the motorbike go over, or just because we were doing a longer journey. He was also more moody, probably because I negotiated him down $5 on the price for the day (from $35 to $30).

Most of the temples today were really just smaller versions of the ones from yesterday. The only really different one was a temple on top of a small hill, Bakheng. From up the hill (which isn't too high but was still a 20 minute trek up) you are supposed to get great views of the other temples, especially at sunrise and sunset, but Li said, and I tend to agree with him, that it was better to go at another time to avoid the crowds. Because all the temples today were smaller they all felt more crowded (especially the first one Banteay Srei).

One other interesting thing about Bakheng, most temples are co-sponsored by some other country to aid in restoration, a few different Japanese universities, France, UK, India, but this one had the flag of that great country American Express. Fair play to them for doing something.

A mini highlight of the day was seeing a wild monkey for the first time in the jungle. I'd heard some the previous day but not seen any, although others in the hotel had. So I saw the little chap and was able to get quite close to him (he may be wild but I guess he's fairly used to tourists).

Rather than stay in the hotel bar I decided to head into Bar St, the main action spot of Siem Reap. Its not actually that long a road, no more than 100m, and probably only has about 20 bars on it, but it is pretty cool nonetheless. Had a few drinks with a guy called Ian from Scotland, and then some Swedish guys. Ian had been looking for cider all night and couldn't find any, and when he left to go back to his hotel, and we went on to one more bar, we found some. I hope he found it the next night.

At the end of the night I discovered one disadvantage to the cheap hotel, it is quite far out of the centtre of the city and that late at night the tuk-tuk price more than doubles, so its not as cheap a spot as it looks.