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Other entries in Siem Reap

Never ask for a strong massage in Cambodia!

It felt like being back at work again as we pulled ourselves out from our comfy duvets at 5am to see sunrise at Angkor Wat.  We opted to not bother with showers so we could sleep more, but that didnt make any difference, we still felt like shit.  The same tuk-tuk driver as the previous day picked us up outside the hotel at 5.30am, and alsmost immediately we all regretted immensely wearing shorts and t-shirts as it was bloody freezing for the entire drive to Angkor Wat.

When we got there, it was jam packed with people on the inner wall, so in order to get some pics wiothout other people in them, we headed down to the lake to take snaps with the reflection in the water, and as it turned out we all got some great pics.  It was very impressive to see the sun rising directly behind the temple, and now I can see why it is one nof the wonders of the world as it is breathtaking.

For breakfast, we stopped off at a small foodstall for a onion omlette sarnie and chatted with a few Cambodian blokes who seemed more interested in talking to English guys about football that to sell the numerous goods they had to offer, which was refereshing!  Normally, they only talk to you in order to sell you something later on.

After breakfast we headed back to Angkor Thom and Bayon just after sunrise, when according to Dad, the carvings of faces are at their 'most alluring'!  Ha ha, I dont even know what that word means Dad, but thanks anyway.  His reccomendation turned out to be a good one as it was much more impressive than the previos night.  The only annoyance was the amount of women around the temple trying to sell you incense sticks to pray to buddha, including one particularly aggressive one who wouldnt let me past her and shoving the sticks in my face!  Me and Ack opted against praying to buddha and all that simply because we didnt know what we were doing and out of ignorance we would have probably done something really insulting by mistake!

We had a search around a few of the other temples in the Angkor Thom complex such as the Terrace of the Leper King, the Terrace of the Elephant King and one huge temple that was being restored as it had collapsed in on itslef and the foundations were bolloxed.  The Leper King one was quite amusing, as it is only called this because the statue on top of the terrace is sexless (meaning it doesnt have a cock) and it is meant to be a king!!  You work it out.

Next stop was the temple of Preah Khan which was a bit boring and Al lasted about five minutes looking at it since he has the attention span of a goldfish.  Me and Ack had a good look around anyway until we saw another of the incense selling monks heading our way and we actually turned and ran away....who else in thew world is actually scared of monks?  Preah Khan is a pretty big temple, built in the shape of a giant crucifix whcih is in a pretty bad way as most of the walls and roofs have colapsed in on themsleves.  As we were leaving on our tuk-tuk to a chorus of "sir, sir, you buy from me!", our tuk-tuk driver didnt seem to be able to turn at all and as a result we nearly wiped out a food stall.  He later claimed that we were too heavy, even though you see some right fat bloaters whizzing about on these things....the cheeky bastard!

We were all starting to get pretty tired again, so we made the decision to see just one more temple, and chose to visit Ta Phrom over all other as it has been left to the jungle and is meant to be one of the most impressive to visit.  On the way, we got a good glimpse of Takeo which wasnt really worth hanging about for.  Ta Phrom didnt dissapoint.  It is amazing how some huge trees have actually gorwn around the walls and over them, and it makes you feel like you are in Indiana Jones or something like that.  We left after abou tone hour as there were too many Japanese tourists everywhere just getting in our way nand we decided to head back to the hotel to get some kip, happy that we had seen the best that Angkor Wat has to offer.

When we got back to the hotel, it took a grand total of about two minutes for all of us to pass out like dribbling messes, and we slept all the way through until 3pm.  When we got up and washed we headed into town for some tapas and red wine, as you do in Cambodia, Ack went for a haircut and I got another shave (nose and all) as my face was beginning to resemble a jungle again.

Since we had a hard mornings sight seeing in the heat, we thought it would be nice and relaxing to go for a massage, and we found one of the places they reccomended in the lonely planet guide called seeing hands.  Basically, you get a massage from a blind person and it is meant to be great.  We all got changed into our robes and got assigned our masseur (I thought I was lucky because I got the woman) and they asked us whether we wanted it storng, medium or soft.  Both of the guys replied medium, whereas I jokingly said, well, how strong are you?  This was taken as me saying I wanted it rediculously strong as for the next hour, this woman completely beat the shit out of every part of my body (well, not all), and I didnt dare ask her to take it easy.  the guys on the other hand loved every minute of it and came out loose as a goose, whereas I just ached to buggery twice as much as when I went in!!  This woman had some seriously strong fingers....I bet she was good at......

We hadnt seen Rich for a few days and none of us had his e-mail address, so we headed over to the Sunset Bar where he stays in the hope of catching him before he left.  we waited in the bar drinking for three hours before he turned up with another English guy called Lee, and we made the executive decision to go out on the lash again.  Me and the boys decided to hit the buckets of vodka red bull early doors, despite warnings that they had amphetamines in them and formed a kitty of five dollars each, which lasted a grand total of five minutes.  We played pool a lot and the more drunk we got, we started dancing on tables with some of the gopping barmaids, which was quite amusing.  Suitabyl well oiled, we took a tuk-tuk to the local nightclub called Zone1 which was jam packed with Cambodians and next to no westerners.  Even so, the drinks were still expensive.  Ack was getting stuck into some Cambodian girl, as was Rich, so me and Al danced like nutters for a while and before long it was closing time and they put on some crappy slow music, so we decided to ballroom dance with each other on stage, which got more than its fair share of strange bemused looks from the locals!  On one trip to the toilet in this club, some bloke who works their came up to me and started to massage my shoulders, but I told him I just wanted to piss in peace thank you very much.  It wasnt just me who got this treatment thank god.

We got a tuk-yuk back into town with seven people on board but all of the bars were closed and we got roped into buying the street kids food again.  This time, word had well and truly spread as there were about thirty of them knocking about.  All of the little boys turned out to be complete bastards and were a complete pain in the arse, so we ignored them and spent our time with officially the nicest family in the world.  I ended up looking after the baby for about half an hour for some reason which was a tad weird as I normally hate the little things!!

After the food stall tried to double charge us, Ack dissapeared with some Cambodian woman (not a hooker, just for the record) and me and Al got followed back to the hotel by all the annoying boys.  we couldnt be doing with this and didnt want people to get the wrong impression about us, so we caught a tuk-tuk for about 300m down the road, and one of the little bastards clung on for the entire journey, only to be chased away by the driver wielding his belt when we arrived at the hotel!!!

So, exactly 24 hours after waking up, we finally made it back to bed at 5am once again.

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