Our bus to Siem Reap is bigger and sleeker, travel time from Phnom Penh is 7 hours and uneventful except for two pee stops, the Central Indochine D'angkor Hotel is a huge let down [fancy name, mediocre facilities, lousy cocktails] and on top of that, I found out to have been surreptitiously charged an additional $40 for an extra bed.
But Pub Street is alive and in full holiday mode so we ordered a christmas platter to go with our pizza at Belmiro's, had (not fried) rolled ice cream for dessert, and celebrated our first night in Siem Reap with Central Indochine D'angkor's abysmal cocktails.
We came for Angkor Wat, to earn the bragging rights of having visited the world's largest religious monument in our lifetime, night and day slicing through us while we chase after the ghosts of Hindu and Buddhist deities, the cool shadow of ancient stones our sole refuge from the burning sun, amused at Balong shooting and posting through galleries where citizens of the the great Khmer Empire once trod.
Cars and tuktuks passed our slow remorque [$20 for a day] as we continue with our temple run through the 162-hectare City of Temples but we eventually caught up with the rest of human and vehicular traffic at the log jam through ornate South Gate which is actually the entrance to Angkor Thom, the last capital of the Khmer Empire, a walled and moated enclave of temples and monuments, the center of which are the "multitude of serene and smiling faces" of the mesmerizing Prasat Bayon.
In Bayon, we collided with humanity and desperately tried to take photo bomber-free pictures before walking to our redezvous with our driver/guide, pausing to pose for a digital remembrance in the entrance to the Baphuon Temple where we literally stumbled into the Terrace of the Elephants and the Temple of the Leper King, a long wall of carved mural that I missed in my first tour of Angkor Wat, and concluded our tryst with Angkor Thom by scaling the steep 14-meter final pyramid of the Ta Keo Temple through the representations of Bulan and Balong.
That was only the first 3 of 6 temples in our itinerary [plus two and a terrace unintentionally] and we were already drained by heat and hunger, but still we persisted and decided to have one more temple run before lunch, to the Ta Phrom Temple, slowly being pulled out of the jungle which has eaten into its walls and made famous by Angelina Jolie in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider".
During lunch which is twice the price in Pub Street, we consulted on what to do next in the afternoon and after lunch, the unanimous concensus is we've had enough temples and would just breeze through the rest in our slow remorque, but we need proof of visit which required at least a photo at the Srah Srang Reservoir, at the gate of the less popular Banteay Kdei Temple and in front of least visited Prasat Kravan.
Back in Pub Street, Bulan and Balong celebrated the conclusion of our temple run with pizza and a beer toast at Le Tigre De Papier and a crocodile burger and more beer at the Banana Leaf, and I'm so happy that I also ordered a jar of Margarita for the wife at Viva's which she obliged with a toast but ordered the three of us to drink.
Tomorrow, we cross the border into Thailand.
But Pub Street is alive and in full holiday mode so we ordered a christmas platter to go with our pizza at Belmiro's, had (not fried) rolled ice cream for dessert, and celebrated our first night in Siem Reap with Central Indochine D'angkor's abysmal cocktails.
We came for Angkor Wat, to earn the bragging rights of having visited the world's largest religious monument in our lifetime, night and day slicing through us while we chase after the ghosts of Hindu and Buddhist deities, the cool shadow of ancient stones our sole refuge from the burning sun, amused at Balong shooting and posting through galleries where citizens of the the great Khmer Empire once trod.
Cars and tuktuks passed our slow remorque [$20 for a day] as we continue with our temple run through the 162-hectare City of Temples but we eventually caught up with the rest of human and vehicular traffic at the log jam through ornate South Gate which is actually the entrance to Angkor Thom, the last capital of the Khmer Empire, a walled and moated enclave of temples and monuments, the center of which are the "multitude of serene and smiling faces" of the mesmerizing Prasat Bayon.
In Bayon, we collided with humanity and desperately tried to take photo bomber-free pictures before walking to our redezvous with our driver/guide, pausing to pose for a digital remembrance in the entrance to the Baphuon Temple where we literally stumbled into the Terrace of the Elephants and the Temple of the Leper King, a long wall of carved mural that I missed in my first tour of Angkor Wat, and concluded our tryst with Angkor Thom by scaling the steep 14-meter final pyramid of the Ta Keo Temple through the representations of Bulan and Balong.
That was only the first 3 of 6 temples in our itinerary [plus two and a terrace unintentionally] and we were already drained by heat and hunger, but still we persisted and decided to have one more temple run before lunch, to the Ta Phrom Temple, slowly being pulled out of the jungle which has eaten into its walls and made famous by Angelina Jolie in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider".
During lunch which is twice the price in Pub Street, we consulted on what to do next in the afternoon and after lunch, the unanimous concensus is we've had enough temples and would just breeze through the rest in our slow remorque, but we need proof of visit which required at least a photo at the Srah Srang Reservoir, at the gate of the less popular Banteay Kdei Temple and in front of least visited Prasat Kravan.
Back in Pub Street, Bulan and Balong celebrated the conclusion of our temple run with pizza and a beer toast at Le Tigre De Papier and a crocodile burger and more beer at the Banana Leaf, and I'm so happy that I also ordered a jar of Margarita for the wife at Viva's which she obliged with a toast but ordered the three of us to drink.
Tomorrow, we cross the border into Thailand.
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