WEDNESDAY 7TH JANUARY
Woke up around midday with a bad head, so I had to go out and get some stodge. After eating huge quantities of food I slobbed around in a bar with too much of a hangover to drink and got talking to two English couples. So engrossed by the conversation we conveniently forgot to meet our tuk-tuk driver who was going to take us to Angkor Wat for sunset. Later on I decided I could handle a couple of beers, big mistake. All it did was make me feel sick for the rest of the day. Went back to the guesthouse to sleep, ready to get up refreshed for another try at sunset tomorrow.
THURSDAY 8TH JANUARY
Not much happened in the day, got up, showered, ate and waited for 4:00p.m to arrive so we could go and watch sunset.
It was a bit of an unsteady journey, 5 miles on unpaved roads, which is a bit of a surprise simply because of the amount of visitors it gets. After paying the $20 fee each we were then told we had to walk up some hills to get to our vantage point. It's a decent view, quite high up and that, but you don't see sunset over Angkor Wat, you can only see sunrise, so it is a bit of a con. I was there with Louise and one of the couples we met yesterday, Tim and Kat.
* PLEASE NOTE THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IS A TRUE ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED. IT IS NOT MADE UP.*
As the sun was setting it was quite a nice view (of the airport), I even took a couple of touristy pictures, but it wasn't breathtaking or an amazing feat of science or nature. What occurred next was something that will stick with me forever in my memory as one of the dumbest things ever to have happened. The sun disappeared and it went a little darker (as it would), then, as if there was a floor manager directing the audience, everyone barring me, Louise, Tim and Kat started a rapturous round of applause. We stood there stunned, mainly because we thought we had missed something, had someone just given birth?
What is the world coming to when people clap the sunset. If you did that alone in your garden at home and one of the neighbours saw you, you'd be carted of to the nearest nuthouse. What makes it OK because there's a couple of hundred people stood there doing it? Was everyone in that crowd really that much of an imbecile? I imagine so. These are the sort of people that still point at cars.
FRIDAY 9TH JANUARY
We got up nice and early to visit the world renowned Temples of Angkor, this involved another trip along the unpaved roads, not good for the haemorrhoid's. When you get there, what you get is hassled by people selling overpriced food and drink and tat. It ruins the experience when you're there just to enjoy what is often cited as 'The 8th Wonder of the World.' The architecture is stunning. The amount of time it took and the limited tools and equipment they had make it more amazing, but this doesn't change the fact that the Temple itself is in a bit of a state. There are lots of renovations going on and a fair bit of blue tarpaulin covering the worst bits, so this spoils it immensely. In my opinion it would be better to limit the number of visitors and let it fall to pieces over time. This won't happen though, simply because it is the number one reason people go to Cambodia. We only spent about 45 minutes at Angkor Wat because there where too many people begging inside (Khmer's get in free, so it's easy done.). The fact that Japanese tourists give the parents money to have their picture taken with the children (At one point we saw a baby getting smacked for crying because it didn't want to pose for photos.) does little to discourage them from begging. We spent the rest of the afternoon looking at some of the other temple grounds, Bayon and Angkor Thom and the one where much of Tomb Raider was filmed. These were more enjoyable because not everyone went to them.
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