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It's been a busy few days with lots to take in, bouncing around like Tigger, often literally thanks to the bumpy roads. Much of this blog has been a bit rushedly (is that a word?) written, so it's not the best. Oh - and I should warn you now, this is not a completely happy blog.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Simon Wadsworth
2006-09-04 16:40:58

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It's been a busy few days with lots to take in, bouncing around like Tigger, often literally thanks to the bumpy roads. Much of this blog has been a bit rushedly (is that a word?) written, so it's not the best. Oh - and I should warn you now, this is not a completely happy blog.

Welcome to Cambodia, a country impossible to describe in a few words of this blog with an intense history dating back millennia. Coming straight to Siam Reap from the border, my first impression of this is the vast array of temples of Angkor, built over an incredible 900 years ago. It kicks Tikal's proverbial ass too! Many people spend up to a week exploring but I thought I'd go crazy on temple-madness if I did that, so instead I had 2 days. But with my trusty bike-with-basket, and my morning french bread and fresh pineapple, I leisurely cycled around and got to see all the local sights, and my favourites 2 or 3 times, including sunrise and sunsets.

The big daddy is Angkor Wat, which I'm constantly reminded of on the beers, place names, logos etc, and why not?! It's the world's largest 100,000s of carvings of people in battles, representing heaven and hell etc..religious structure, the ultimate in Homo Sapien construction, and breathtaking, with outer walls stretching over 1km in length, a maximum height over 50m, and adorned all over in sculpture and bas-reliefs. Other temples worth checking out were the unique Bayon, with over 50 towers and 200 cold-smiling face analysing my pineapple eating methods, and the atmospheric Ta Prohm, strangled in trees where neither can survive without the other (and for film buffs, where part of Tombraider was filmed), but there were dozens more in cycling distance.

Poverty is also evident everywhere, with kids constantly trying to sell you postcards and souveniers, and then when you buy one, like seagulls to a portion of chips, more appear out of nowhere offering a better price. It's ...