Siem Reap is a really nice town. It has nice parks, beautiful houses and is well worthy being the base for Angkor Wat.
The only agony was to get there! We hired a taxi from Phnom Penh but the roads were a nightmare. I have never seen any roads worse than that. Huge potholes, dusty roads where you have to go offroad not to get stuck. The driver was going way to fast and it was obvious after the first hour that the car would never make it there. We went flying through potholes, it was a miracle the driver kept control of the car. I expected to end up in one of those huts on stillts. We could hardly see the road through all the dust and the car sounded worse and worse. First went the exhaust, then the suspension, then we leaked oil and at the end the whole car gave up 5km before Siem Reap. By that time Uli wanted to kill the driver and he is lucky he got away with us just catching a lift with some French tourists.
Angkor Wat is amazing. Uli and I felt like Lara Croft (just without the guns) wandering and climbing around Ta Phrom, the jungle temple. It is impressive how nature is taking back its ground and has totally covered Ta Phrom with trees and crawling plants. There are so many temples that we went for 3 days. The second day we went to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. For some reason we were about 1 hour too early and sat there for ages totally alone in the darkness looking at the 1000 year old building. It was kind of spooky and a bit dream-like watching the sunrise and wondering how many sunrises these walls have seen.
New years eve started as a bit of a disappointment. We were supposed to have a party at the guesthouse but it was cancelled that evening so we had to find somewhere else to go. After going for a curry we went to an English pub. It turned out to be a good choice. One thing is for sure, the British know how to party and soon loads of people were dancing on the bar. We had a great time and finally staggered home in the early morning hours.
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