A flight to Siem Reap, not surprisingly, involved us going to Phnom Penh airport. This was absolutely crowded and we had great difficulty getting in. Once through the melee we discovered the congestion was being caused by a huge group of several hundred muslim Cambodians in their best clothes who had all come to see off a few elderly folk. Unfortunately the entrance to the departure lounge is via a set of escalators and it became apparent that none of them had ever been on a moving staircase before. They were therefore approaching it one at a time. Each person would wait for the person already on the escalator to reach the top and get off before starting to think about how they may consider venturing on to such a complex piece of technological equipment. The whole process therefore taking about 5 minutes per person.
Once in Siem Reap we checked into our air conditioned, marble bathroomed luxury hotel, complete with swimming pool etc and confirmed the price - £8.25 each including breakfast. We stuck with the whole tourist thing, hired an air conditioned minibus taxi for the day (£2.50 each) and set off to do the temples. These are big and fascinating if you like that sort of thing - lots of old carved stones put together in an amusing way. The best news is that the highest of the temples was never finished as each time it got to a certain height it was struck by lightening and had to be rebuilt. Apparently they did this three times before they finally got the message and abandoned it. You are supposed to spend about three days looking around the temples - we managed three hours before we finally all got bored and abandoned ourselves to the hotel swimming pool and the waiter who could not get to grips with the concept of a starter and a main course.
No doubt there will be more shopping tomorrow - then we start the journey home
1 comment:
Finally proof that Em is, in fact, there!
If the buildings didn't keep your attention, maybe you should have thought about going to Bankok instead? ;)
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