Angkor Rocks

 Dear all

Since we started our travels around SE Asia I have been looking forward to this part of tour the most having wanted to visit Angkor Wat for many years. As we said yesterday the journey to Siem Reap took longer than expected - about 11 hours and we arrived after it had got dark to a rugby scrum of tuk tuk drivers all wanting your business not only for the journey to the hotel, but also for the following days excursions to the sacred temples. We settled on a guy called Ronnie who seemed a little less pushy than the rest and set our agenda for the next couple of days. This morning we set off to visit the largest religious structure in the world Angkor Wat & it didn't disappoint. The whole place just shouts power and authority and in its time must have been a very intimidating sight. There isn't much I can say apart from it took us around two and a half hours to walk around and I was impressed from start to finish ( Dean -  just thought it was a load of old rocks & couldn't see what the fuss was all about!).

We then had an early lunch to avoid the tour groups and then went to Ta Prohm, which although was an awesome temple in its time the decision to leave it as a managed ruin exposed to the ravages of the jungle was a wise one as it reminds you what the explorers who 'rediscovered'  this area would have seen & its right out of an Indiana Jones movie - your almost expect the rocks to start tumbling as you walk through the dappled shade along the bas reliefs which have tree roots and lichen all over them.

Our final stop was the old fortified city of  Angkor Thom, which at its peak probably housed around a million people - so pretty big ! Within the walls are a large number of temples which remain (stone was reserved only for gods!) and we spent another few hours wondering around this area. Our final stop was the South gate of the city for a little photo shoot then back. We avoided the sunset scrum which was probably wise as it was cloudy when we got back & would not have we worth the jostling!  Tomorrow is Dean's favourite day of the whole tour when I make him get up at 4.00am to watch 'a sunrise over bunch of stone's we already saw yesterday'! - Don't worry he gets his revenge in Oz - 25 days of cricket Arghhhh!!

Wish me luck!

Thanks for looking

Hugs Sara