Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is the mother of all temples, well so the guide books say. For my travels this was going to symbolize the end of all my visits to temples for the rest of this trip and possibly even my life. At this point I was pretty feed up with temples really, I just didn't really care anymore, I don't visit churches back home so I don't know why I was visiting so many temples out here. Despite my large amount of temple apathy I was quite looking forward to Angkor Wat because it was supposed to be something special. I had never heard a bad word about this place and considering they offer 3 day passes to look around the place, there was surly going to be something I liked there.

Angkor Wat is basically a huge complex of temples in Angkor just outside Siem Reap. It is an absolutely massive place and would take you a week or maybe even 2 to look round and see the whole place. I have no idea how big the whole site is or how many temples are in the area. All I know is the place was bloody big and there were loads of temples.

Tommy, me and Trulz hired a Tuk Tuk for the day to take us around the site. This is often recommended as it would take weeks to see the place if you were to walk from temple to temple. This meant we covered quite a large amount of the place in just the one day and while we didn't get a very in depth view of the place, we defiantly saw all the main temples there.

The only things that really tainted the day were the large amount of Cambodians hawking around the place. It costs all foreigners $20 entry to the site, which get you a a ticket with your photo on which you have to show every time you enter a temple. However the Cambodian can go for free so they turn up every day and try sell stuff to all the tourists visiting the temples. It was just really annoying when you are trying to look around the place and enjoy the fairly peaceful surroundings when a 5 year old Cambodian child is trying to see you postcards for $1. It did not help matters at all and just gets very tiring as they don't take no for an answer. One girl challenged me to a game of naughts and crosses and said if I lost I had to buy a postcard. I lost, but refused to by the postcard.

The highlight of the day came from a fat yank. Somehow got talking to a women who was with a church tour of Angkor Wat who had come all the way over from California. I can't even remember what we aid to her but she then asked as "So where abouts in Germany are you guys from?". Fucking German! What? We then explained we were from England and asked where she was from (knowing she was obviously from America), she said Calafornia in America to which Tommy the quick witted devel he is replied "Oh cool, I've always wanted to go to Canada". Her face was a picutre Ohhh how I laughed.

Did I like Angkor Wat? Yes I did. Did I care about it? No. Unfortunately my temple apathy was now just to strong and while I did like seeing the massive temples, they were very impressive, I just couldn't be bothered to go around the place, it was seriously humid, my fallen arch was given me shit again so was even more effort to walk around the place and every so often it would rain. I am pleased I went as I did feel like I was visiting something special. But I just found it hard to appreciate. I felt it was such a shame really as looking through my pictures now as I put them on here does remind me of how awesome the place was but I think I was just all templed out.