Saturday 13th October and Sunday 14th October
We hired bikes from our guesthouse and made our way to the Angkorian National Park, where we visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and other temples. It was amazing but very touristy, which was to be expected. I think we enjoyed ourselves even more on the second day when we were able to take it easy and absorb it all in a more leisurely way. This was partly because by the second day we were more familiar with the layout of all the temples, whereas we spent most of the first day unintentionally finding out what roads to go down, by finding out all the places not to go and working on a process of elimination! But we preferred to see the temples by making our own way. The park is so vast, so a form of transport is necessary to get around, but hiring a tuk-tuk and a tour guide was another expense which we didn't need.
As well as being very impressive structures, the temples also have lots of very fine detail throughout. The environment around the temples is very beautiful. The more remote, less frequented ruins have a fairytale-like quality to them.
We must have cycled about 20 miles across the two days - a bit too much for my granny knees and other parts of my anatomy to handle. My whole body was in pain, but I survived and it was well worth it!
All the temples have varying degrees of beauty, depending on the time of day and the light. We made a comic balls-up during our last moments there, waiting for the sunset to fall behind Angkor Wat. "Where's this bloody sunset then?" We must have sat there for about 45 minutes before turning around to see the sun disappearing behind us. It is in fact sunrise that you can view over Angkor Wat, and sunset is behind another temple entirely. Oh well, we still had fun while we waited! There were lots of monkeys around the temples, and while we had our backs to the setting sun, I got a classic photo of a monkey holding a cigarette packet and looking very cool.
Having waited around too long, we had to make our way back through the park and the town in rush hour in the dark, which wasn't the safest activity as our bikes were a bit run-down and didn't have any lights or bells or even fully-functioning breaks! But this meant I forgot about the pain in my knees and crutch while I concentrated on not getting myself killed.
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