Living in St.Petersburg (Russia): SIEM REAP

Bus to Siem Reap was painless, which was a change. Although it is only 296 km away from Pnompenh it still took us 6 hours to get to Siem Reap. I have no idea why it takes so long on the buses in this part of the world. When we arrived we were met by a horde of toutes offering accomodation, transportation, anything you want, sticking laminated photos of guest-houses into your face and grabbing your elbows and other body parts in their desperate attempt to get our attention. One guy was quite skillful because we ended up in his tuk-tuk on our way to the guest-house of his choice. Normally we would be absolutely against it, but since we didn't have any particular guest-house in mind, we gracefully went along with it. Our friend Janice did recommend one guest-house with the auspicious name of "Golden Banana", but after checking the price of accomodation we gave up on it; it was too expensive for our liking. Anyways, we ended up in the guest-house called Family Guest-house. The room had aircondioner and hot water and TV for $12. But we agreed that if we don't use airconditioner we'll only pay $8 a day. And so we checked in.

After hitting rock-bottom luck-wise in Vientiane with our sicknesses and bed-bugs, I feel like we slowly but surely crawling up again. No more bed-bugs and our tummies are not that bad either. :) The next day we hired two bycicles (unfortunately you can't hire motocycles in Siem Reap. We saw only a few sleezy looking French guys, who seem to be living here, driving motorcycles with their local girlfriends.) and went to Angkor Wat, about 6.5 km from Siem Reap. The whole town of Siem Reap exists only thanks to the huge number of tourists who come to see the Angkor Wat. In a way it seems even more civilized and rich compared to the capital Pnompenh. The prices here are not cheap at all, in fact they are too expensive, the dollar sign in front of everything only makes it to feel more expensive. Angkor Wat is what everyone says it is. It is grand and beautiful with the surrounding moat so big that it just looks like a natural river. It is so big that after walking around only Angkor Wat you feel like you've done half-marathon and just want to sit somewhere or even better lie down and sleep for a couple of hours. But unfortunately you can't because there's so much to see. Katy was contemplating the idea of getting only a day pass, which was really unrealistic because it is just impossible to see everything in one day. We got 3 days passes and still by the end of second day we've only seen the main complexes and there're so many other pre-Angkorian complexes as well...

Anyways, in two days we biked around a lot sightseeing. My ass never was plump (it never was skinny too, Katy thinks it's just right shape and size.. ha~) neither was it skinny, so, I blame it on the bycicle seat. My butt still hurts. It was so uncomfortable for me especially towards the end of today, the second day. It kept pushing and pushing against my buttcheecks and other body parts that it started to hurt a little (but bearable) as we were getting close to the town. Also my bike had a habbit of spitting the chain out of those round things on which it normally sits, so, a few times I had to stop and fix it. Tomorrow our last day of Angkor Wat sightseeing we'll probably hire a tuk-tuk and will go around like other lazy asses sitting in a relatively comfortable chair. We might also get on an air balloon around 1 km away from Angkor Wat and get an arial view of Angkor Wat. Hopefully we'll get a nice picture out of that.

Other than that we've been really enjoying the restaurant scene in Siem Reap. You can get anything and everything and it all tastes GOOD~~ For the last two days we were eating dinner at the Korean restaurant. I forgot how good Korean food is and how much I missed it. And today we found this store here, which was like a heaven, because you could find anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that you like or want. We ended up buying little snacks and juices and pate... The store also had an excellent selection of chocolates which reminded me of our recent travel-mate Katinka, who just can't live without it.

We think we'll be leaving Cambodia in a few days for Thailand, the rainy season started here, so it rains practically every day, and when it does it's not your regular spitting, it's freaking waterfall. And from there we will go to Uzbekistan, so, our travels will be practically over, but in reality might be just continuing because we both have to settle in a country where one haven't ever lived and the other haven't lived for the last 10 years. Anyways, this post get too long, so enjoy a few photos here.
One night we went to a restaurant where they had dance performance. Two Long Island ice-teas for $4.

Angkor Wat is a place where locals come to take wedding photos. However, unlike boring white Western weddings, local wedding are colorful and cheerful. We saw pink, green, blue and maroon weddings.

Photos of Angkor Wat in daylight and at night.

Bayon temple with 54 faces staring at you at all angles and Ta Prohm temple, which is swallowed by the jungles, and where some scenes for the Tomb Raider were shot.

Phnom Bakheng temple on top of the hill, which is famous for the beautiful view of sunset from its top. And because of that tons of tourists gather on top of it starting from about 5pm. One of those monkeys in its circus were us.