A touch too many temples to take in

Angkor Wat's neighbour, Siem Reap, is home to thousands of tourists and millions of Cambodians milking their cash cows dry of their tourist dollars. I'd like to quickly point out that before I get started on Blogging Cambodia, until they stop using Dollars instead of their own currency, Riel, I will never be truly happy. I get why they do it, but i don't like it.

We didn't warm to the place for a day or two, at first we wondered what on earth we'd let ourselves into, and why the guidebook, aka the bible, raves about the place. I cant believe we ha vent ceremonially burnt the fvcking Lonely Planet on a shoestring book yet, such is our hatred of it! I'm not sure whether to do that or use every single page to wipe my arse and then put the book back together and send it to Lonely Planet's head office.

Anyway, back to Siem Reap. Our hotel called the Smiley Guesthouse was OK, well at least our room was, sadly only the key fobs were smiley.

The staff had flunked out of hospitality college and were intent on making us feel like they were doing us a favour letting us stay there, plus the shanty town next door was keen on late night Germaniac techno and early morning Cambodian pop ballads. Well aware that we didn't want to waste a day moving hotel if we were to make the most of our comically expensive 3 day pass for the temples of Angkor Wat we stayed put, and resented every moment of our stay there. It didn't help that we gave them the collection of rags that we call our clothes and washed them, but only succeeded in making them dirtier than they were before. It took 4 hours of scrubbing and soaking, and rinsing to get them in a reasonable state.

Check out the muck from this this top after I'd rinse it in warm water.

We also made the mistake of eating once in the tourist ghetto around the brilliantly monikered 'Pub St' , had a very bland overpriced meal at a place called Soup Dragon (random fact, 1st vinyl I ever bought was ''I'm Free'' by the Soup Dragons) that the lonely planet had described as cheap and tasty, so decided it was locals places all the way for us from now on, as is normally the case. This was harder to follow than planned as all the locals places were cheaper but also overpriced in that they were totally rubbish. Once we relented and stopped being such pretentious twats and went to a few of the other western places, we realised we'd made a mistake, that the best value food was the western food and that it wasn't that expensive. The Blue Pumpkin and Papier de Tigre both get a big thumbs up, as do the little shacks set up at the far end of Pub st selling cheap beer and basic grub all night long.

In view of our budgets already being decimated by the entry ticket price we opted to bike up to the temples and round them, suddenly subjecting our lazy backpacker bodies to 30km in the melting heat.

The 1st day was amazing, a tiring but rewarding day cycling out to practically deserted temples out in the jungle. The highlight was one that was straight out of Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider

Check out this little trailor of Nicky as a rather anxious looking Lara Croft

The Ta Prohm Temple has been over run by the jungle. Man tamed the jungle, but there's only one winner in the long run, eh?

The 2nd day was a disappointment, partly due to a hangover after a very nice evening with Martin the Austrian we'd met in Laos. It was nice being out there but we were losing enthusiasm for crumbling identikit temples and the sunset was shrouded by low laying cloud

We did see a pregnant monkey though, good times
The 3rd day was a step too far. We'd saved Angkor Wat for last, and treated ourselves to a ride in a tuk tuk because it was too damn hot to cycle again

Nic was unimpressed from the start.

Possibly because working out which route to take was just too much for her, or because it turns out that she's grown a penis

A photo op on a donkey cheered her up though. The best dollar Ive ever spent

Seriously though, the main event is definitely the actual Angkor Wat complex rather than the other surrounding temples, and we had a nice time strolling around battling with Japanese tourists for photo ops and wondering why Cambodian women go out in their pyjamas