Cambodia

First we wanted to go by bus from Saigon (HoCHiMinh) to Phnom Penh, but because of alle the terrible long busrides in Vietnam, we did not feel like spending another 15 hours in a bus and after that a 6 hours'boattrip to Siem Reap. So we decided to take a plane from Saigon to Siem Reap bij Vietnam Airways. That took us only 1 hour and 15 minutes. 
We did not have a Visum yet. In Saigon we could buy one for US$33 each, on the airport in Siem Reap it was only us$20, a difference of US$13 !! Definitely worth the little waiting time in Siem Reap. At the airport there was a small desk, crowded with toursist,  where you had to fill in a visumrequestform, to hand in together with a photo and passport. The 6 Cambodian people behind the desk were sitting in a row and each of them did something with the passport and eventually the last one holded the passports which were ready up in the air so the tourists can recognize their own passport !! 

At the exit it was easy to take a taxi, which brought us into town for US$5. We said we wanted to go to the ... Hotel, which was us$10 for 1 night with airco (which was necessary, because the temperature was 48 degrees Celcius one day. Underway the driver told us that his brother had a motor and wanted to take us to the temples tomorrow. We said that was fine, but wanted to discuss the price and everything before with his brother. That was ok, he'll pick us up the next day at 7 am.   

Going to the Ankhor Temples is pretty expensive, for tourists mainly because locals don't pay anything. For us it was US$40 for a 3-days ticket. One day is US$20, and 2 or 3 days is US$40. For the latter it is necessary to bring a photo.

Ankhor Wat

The maintowers of the Ankhor Wat, an impressive, big temple at the main entrance of the complex. We arrived in Cambodia on the 13th of April, exactly the first day of Khmer New Year. This ment that there were thousands of Cambodian Tourist from all over the country visiting the temples.  Be patient for shooting  pictures without any people on it !!

Especially the details of all the sculptures are unbelievable. Image how they did it so long ago.		The temples are also a place for Bhoedhist monks. Very friendly people.

The South Entrance Gate

To enter the temple complex by motor or car, you need to pass the South Gate. A very interesting gate with lots of remarkable details. The bridge is 'decorated'with 2 rows of guards. The left row are men, the right row are female statues. Fortunately a reasonable number of statues have been rebuild, so you can image what it looked like hundreds of years ago.

Bayon

The Bayon temple I think is the most impressive one of the complex. The temple contains 38 towers with on every of the 4 sides the image of a face. All the faces are different. 

Ta Phrom

The Ta Phrom temple is a strange temple. The temple itself is not very impressive, but it is overgrown by a large number of big trees. The roots of these trees are all over the walls and gates, which makes it a really nice view.

Bantea Schrei

About 26 kilometers North of the Ankhor Wat is de small temple Bantea Schrei. It belongs to the top 4 temples in the complex and is definitely worth a visit, even though it is of course more expensive.It is not a very big temple, but the colours (mainly red/brown) and the details of the sculptures are definitely worth looking at.

We are on our way now for 2,5 months. Cambodia was hot and dusty, so we needed some rest quickly. Where better to go than Thailand. We wanted a flight from Siem Reap (Cambodia) straight to Phuket. Bangkok Airways says there are flying 3 times a week; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. But only a few weeks after introduction of this flightschedule, they skipped the Tuesday flight and you would have guessed, that was the flight we wanted. Now we had to fly to Bangkok (US$150 each).

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