Thursday, 28 June 2012

Siem Reap, cambodia-18th-21st may 2012- our khmer experience.

18.5.2012 3.06am- yes, 3.06am, we are waiting for our chatty taxi driver to pick us up from home. we are finally flying. we booked this holiday exactly a year ago, on 24th may 2011, and here we are. :) we are super sleepy, as we slept at 12am that morning. oh we celebrated ky's 29th birthday. the theme was "monopoly":D. anywayss moving on, so ya, a 3.06am, we took our first picture of this trip:
5.59am - Now waiting outside the departure hall. In another half an hours time we will be cruising above the clouds. Though fatigue from the night before, we are very excited to explore this exotic place. A place famed by its many ancient and magnificent temples. The journey took us about 2 hours and with God's grace we landed at our destination safely.
7.45am (local time). Here we were at the Siem Reap International airport. It is a small airport probably the same size of Langkawi. As it was early in the morning, we are the only flight there. As we stepped out of the airpot, it did not take us long to spot the tuk-tuk driver who came to pick us up. Tuk-tuk in cambodia is very much like the tuk-tuk in other countries such as Thailand and India. However the difference that you can see here it look like as if they substituted the bull of a bull-cart with a motorbike.
8.03am it's a simple town, a bit disorganized, and everything is on the opposite direction. seriously, even drivers are on left, roundabouts, and no one follows traffic lights. i definitely cant drive here. :P
840am we just arrived at our hotel, thumborey hotel. nice cosy simple hotel, and clean!. not a five star but good enough for us:).
our hotel:) 915am our tour guide arrived. his name is bunto. we started our tour. first place we had to go was the ticket place. you see it's bit different from all the tour places you visit elsewhere. you need to go to a place, to buy your ticket, for 1 day pass, 3 days or 1 week pass. we decided to take the 3 day pass, just in case on third day we did not know what to do, we still could go for visiting. so yeah, when you stop at this place, they will issue each individual a ticket, and you cannot loose it, for the 3 days, each temple you go, you show them this ticket, then they allow you in.
this is the ticket place
tourist no 1 ticket
tourist no 2 ticket 931am
939am so we arrived at angkor Thom. angkor Thom means big city. inside this big city, there are many many ruins and temples. so this is what we saw at the first.
as you walk further you will see more ruins.
tourist no 1
tourist no 2 as you walk in further, there are more and more ruins, so its not just one temple or building, there's a lot of little little ones inside.
10.15am we are now inside angkor thom. and at the entrance of Bayon, you will see a row of statues on the left and right.
on the left, are statues of the gods.
and on the right are demons. :/
10.25am and this is the entrance to bayon, a huge temple with four faces of Buddha. the entrance is majestic.awesome pawesome!
inside bayon are not just temples, also trees, hugeee trees and roots.
mini reclining budhha
tourist no 1 with a headless statue. actually a lot of statues were headless. ppl took it to sell.:(
check out the roots. they are huge.
and talll.
and these are the carvings. their life, their sorrow, their happiness, passion all in this carving.amazing isnt it?
inside bayon
awesome picture:)
another headless statue:( 11.25am next temple: Baphuon. this is largely collapsed and in ruined condition.
its steep.
i couldn't walk up, so my captain America went up and posed.
love this picture
and this my friends is their swimming pool. yes swimming pool .and it is hugeeee. maybe it is their bathing pool ,but its called swimming pool .obviously no one uses it now, but its still huge for a swimming pool dont you think?
sanskript 12.09pm now we are entering the terrace of the leper king. the name comes from smth about this used to be the hospital to treat leprosy. i think.
1pm lunch time. bunto took us to thsi khmer village restaurant. oh well, nothing to shout about, but the one thing that we wanted to try were their beers, and hey, its so cheap, in usd, convertign to rm, dirt cheap. so we started with angkor beer;)
and thats my boring fried chicken and chips
his boring but nice fried fish with mango salad 2pm after lunch, we are energize, got a plaster for my leg. so whats next? continue sight seeing. now we are entering ta prohm.
here, we have hugee huge trees and roots.
see i told u there were huge
this tree slunts to the left
now see this.
223pm beautiful carvings, but i am already tired:P
3.30pm we are in another temple-bantheay kdei.
we have seen so many temples today that it all looks the same:P and poverty here is bad. little children begging you to buy their products. magnets, bracelets, postcards, so i bought a few magnets and ky bought some postcards. pretty ones. 4.04pm this is another swimming pool. this is bigger then previous one.
this kids are not swimming, but snailing (catching snails)hahaahha
i told you its bigggggg. 4.30pm we came back to hotel, showered and napped. both of us are so tired. 7.10pm dinner time. we came out to this night market. to do some shopping. :) 955pm we decided to eat roadside food, because road side food is the best. duhhh.
my tomyam. niceeee
this is deliciousssss. pancake banana chocolate. ok its roti pisang with condensed milk and chocolate. but its awesome.
11pm back in room, and we are going to sleep. long day tomorrow. *end of day 1* 19.5.2012 7.54am morning sunshine. we thought we overslept, cz 6am is there is as bright as our 8am. but anyways, hotel provided free breakfast, so we are here, we are the only ones:P
10.15am it took us one hour to reach banteay srey.Banteay Srei is built largely of red sandstone, a medium that lends itself to the elaborate decorative wall carvings which are still observable today. The buildings themselves are miniature in scale, unusually so when measured by the standards of Angkorian construction. These factors have made the temple extremely popular with tourists, and have led to its being widely praised as a "precious gem", or the "jewel of Khmer art."
1032am this temple is beautiful, and its using pink sandstone. awesome. and oh i want a hammock. they are everywhere:D
swimming poolXD
i must say the carvings here are reallly amazing.
see what i mean by awesome pawseome?
its so fine and delicate, and so significant.
pretty?
wowwwww
hindu influence
11.20am we are going to another temple, and there was this lady selling bananas. and of course, my captain america must buy..hahaha but it was nicee:D
12.00pm we are in another temple-pre rup. also beautiful scenery, and from this temple, we can actually see the tip of angkor wat.
1240pm finally trying real khmer food. we had khmer curry and amok.
surprising my amok did not look like this:/
this is tomyam.
and this is amok 130pm after lunch, now we are at Prasat Kravan. another beautiful temple, with all hindu influence.
and we are heading to Angkor wat:) 2.02pm on the way to angkor wat. it is going to rain:(
2pm. we have arrived, but its going to rain:(.
inside first temple of angkor wat.
and this is the majestic building.
beautiful view from insde even the bees wanted to make thier home here:)
4.09pm its sunny again:D 4.11pm see, i am touching the tip of angkor wat
oh there are a lot of monkeys, and my captain america was swinging his bananas and before he knew it, the monkey came from the back and stole his bananas, and after stealing, he hissed at him. so funny.
beautful.
4.30pm another ruin near angkor wat
5.04pm ok, bunto took us to crocodile leather factory. bluekk 5.38pm back in room and showered. going for buffet dinner and cultural show after this. 545pm my mickey
625pm going out now to this restaurant called koulen 11.
648pm thats the stage for the performance. quite nice. traditional dances. but if you explore the culture, south east asia shares a lot of similiarities. i would know cz i am from performing arts background so yeah,a lot of the elements in our malay folk dances are similiar to cambodian dances, thai dances.
frist dance
second dance
915pm we walked around and bought more stuff:)heading back to sleep. almost done with the souvenirs. (i said lamost) hahahah **end of day 2** 20.5.2012 855am having breakfast at hotel. the same thing. lol. after this we are going to walk around at center market, and i am already sad, because the holiday which we planned a year ago is almost over:(
11.27am we are at lucky mall doing some window shopping. nth to shout about. kl shopping is so much better. honestly!! it's just the whole hipe of going to cambodia and shopping! 12.07pm, we found this place called 'father's restaurant'. nice food. and we tried cambodian beer:)
fried shrimp
this was dam nice. fried fice with tamarind sauce.
mango salad with basil leaves
1.32pm massage time:) go to cambodia must try massge ma.. cheap cheap massage. 5 dollar only. mine was 10 dollars. cz mine got oil. 2.40pm decided to do manicure but wasnt satisfied. oh well, what do you expect of usd4?? 4pm we are back in room chilling with our kingdom gold.:)kindac feeling sad, as our holiday is almost over;( 715pm
last night to do last minute shopping, at night market
pub street
roadside food
night market
padthai:) his favourite
tomyam again .lol
horrible ice cream
845pm back in the room and packing. we have to be up at 530am:( sad sad sad **end of day 3** 21.5.2012 6.01am see how bright it is?
8.03am we are boarding the plane:( *sad mode* guess everything has to come to an end. we planned this holiday exactly a year aho, and it's overrrrrr!!! 11.03am (malasian time) we just landd in lcct. sigh. so whats next?? or where's next?:D. 12.37pm we are in the cab now. it was an awesome holiday, thank god for everthing,thank god for reaching siem reap safely, for being with us when we were there and msot of all thank god for each other. despite the end of holiday, we are glad to be home. it's nothing like malaysia. i love malaysia:). good bye siem reap, till we meet again:D. for now, it's time to get ready for work, and of course, plan our next destination:D
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