Siem Reap home of the Temples at Angkor

After yet another crappy bus ride from Sinuakville to Siem Reap, we arrived at 10:30 p.m. with no hotel room booked and Chinese New Year starting just a few days later...most the hotels and guesthouses were full.  I guess Siem Reap is a popular place for the Chinese to spend their holidays. We finally got a room that was available for the one night and the next morning continued to search for a room for the 4 days we planned to be in the city and found one at Smile's Guesthouse.  Across the street, at the Sidewalk Hotel, Ken struck a deal with the owner so we could come and use their pool everyday.  What a deal!  A three day pass to Angkor is $40 so we hired a tuktuk for three days (at $15 a day) and planned our attack-day one in the afternoon we would take in a few temples then stick around for the sunset, day two we would start early, 5:00a.m. to see the sunrise over Angkor then check out Bayon Temple, home of a million of faces, and day three we would get our tuktuk to give us a ride around the grand tour, the whole main site and see a last few temples.  It was a long, hard, hot three days but I really enjoyed it and took over 500 pictures, Ken on the other hand thought all the temples started to look the same after a while, but still was amazed at the work they did over 1100 years ago.   After finishing up with Angkor, on the 4th day we rented pedal bikes and toured around the countryside, checked out the night life in town and got a foot massage...we were ready to move on.

The Temples of Angkor Wat behind us as we on some of the rubble let behind by time and one of the many wars this country has been through.

Roots from the banyon trees rap their exposed roots around the buildings, we asked ourselfs were they helping to destruct the place or were they helping to hold it up?

Sitting on one of the entrances to the Angkor Wat, it is amazing there are no other people in the picture....there were thousands of tourists.  We showed up 3 days before the start of Chinese New Year!

Ken was patient with my photo taking.  I clicked over 500 pic in our 3 days at the site...thank goodness for digital. 

One of the many faces of Angkor.

The attention to detail in the carvings depicting daily life was mind boggling. 

Check out the size of the banyon root beside Ken!

When the sunlight is coming from just the right direction the small holes in the wall let through enough light to make this statue look like a flame of a candle. 

A face on the Temple of Bayon, at Angkor.

We witnessed the sunset over Angkor along with a multitude of other people, unfortunately the clouds prevented much a spectacle but till many , many photos were taken.

Our taxi driver, Phong, loves Cambodia and so did we.  Every kid we ride by waved and yelled hello at the top of their lungs.

Ken, Johana, Fabian and I went downtown Siem Reap to Pub Street one night and checked out the bars and restaurants.  Lots of people and lots of lights!

While on a ride through some of the back streets a small girl jumped on the back of my bike and took a ride for a few blocks, on her way home from school, before she jumped off when we turned off her street.  She was so light I didn't even feel her on there.

Ken enjoys one of his daily coconuts, we tried to drink the water from one coconut everyday.