Early(ish) we woke and were whisked away by our friendly drivers to our first stop, Angkor Thom (big Capital) which, as you might imagine was the main Khmer City complex. Inside Amanda and I were once again confronted with the awesome Bayon temple, the rest of us were seeing it for the first time, which was twice as good. The old kings face stared back at us a hundred fold from the temples many towers as we walked around and admired the carvings, buddhas and photo ops. This was a great start to the day, especially as Tour Guide Jez was giving a running commentary (mostly remembered from the teachings of tour guide Dawn) on the area, its history and the architecture around us.

Preah Khan is a huge temple complex half collapsed under the weight of the trees it supports. Amanda and I well remember getting lost in its maze-like passageways almost a year ago. This time we kept pretty much together roaming the stone and root tunnels, looking for bigger and better phallic altars and clambering over boulders to get to the next courtyard.

After a carefully planned time we all met up, found the tuk-tuk's and headed off to the favourite of many Angkor Wattians, Ta Prom. This is the one you might see if you take your eyes off Angelina for long enough in Tomb Raider. An evil labyrinth that splits groups up within seconds to ones and two's, all hopelessly lost till they get to the middle courtyard and meet up again. Ta Prom is being relentlessly chewed up by the jungle, everywhere are roots and branches sticking out of, or burying into the stone work. It's really quite a beautiful monument to man and nature. We oooh'd and aah'd for an hour or so, then sped away once again for lunch, a chilled out hour to reflect on what we'd seen so far, think on the best that was yet top come and try to fend off the kids selling postcards and waters best we could.

Next up, Angkor Wat.

And again Amanda and I were completely blown away by the place. For our tour group, this was their first time seeing it, I think they were suitably impressed. We wandered around the outside for all of 20 seconds, till the noise and havoc of the large Korean tour groups put us off, then retreated to the more secluded spaces and nooks of the inner temple. In the centre even Jenni managed to swallow her dislike of steep, crumbly, slippy steps and climb all the way to the central tower, from which we were rewarded with a full-on fabulous view of the surrounding ruins, paddy fields and hills. It was a great end to the day.

In the evening Amanda and I stayed back to do important administration work while the others went to see Beat Richner play the cello between demands for money and blood at the Kantha Bopha hospital. Having been in Cambodia for such a short time we were interested to see how the stories of real life in this country would affect them. The bus left the next morning for Phnom Penh and, knowing that this was the last stop before we all split up again we were on it bound for the capital. Judith and Jenni were about to be subjected to the continuous hug that was the orphanage, meet some great locals, see a little culture and hear about a lot of death. Cambodia in a nutshell.

The first thing that hits you is the humidity, closely followed by the heat. The smell doesn't register till much later.

Unmistakably though, we'd come back to Bangkok.

Already planning to return to the Philippines and dive in at least 2000 of its 6000 or so uninhabited paradise islands, we quickly found ourselves in the Rambutri Village Inn. It felt like home the first time we were insulted by the horrific staff, or caught a pad thai and banana smoothie on the street, or cracked open our first Singha beer in nine months, or watched the white haired old men lead teenage girls back to their rooms. We really should stop coming to the Khao San area, it's bad for the soul.

We only had one day in BKK, so against my better judgement decided not to spend most of it in bed. I took a few hours to take yet more photo's off the camera and commit them to CD, write a bit, chill in the general backpacker grooviness that surrounded me. Amanda and family went on a Bangkok sight seeing extravaganza taking in the Temple of Dawn (which apparently is made of broken pottery and bits and pieces, and looks great up close. They also went to check out the Lumpini night market (which I cunningly avoided having laundry to pick up!)

Cabbages and condoms, the original

I did manage to join everyone in Cabbages and Condoms for dinner. Jeni had spent her 21st here with Judith and John many many years ago. The decor was just as avant guarde as I recalled not so long ago, condom sculptures all over the place. The food was as amazing as the last time too.

Shopping shopping and more shopping

It was an early night for all...ohhh...after 6 hours of night market shopping! That was the only Bangkok frivolity. Too much money spent by all we headed off to bed knackered, we had to get up at 4:30am for the bus to the Cambodian border. Having done all the before with Andy and Dawn seriously helped with the planning and logistics, the bus was a doddle, the tuk-tuk ride to the border, the formalities and everything went smoothly. (The immigration guard spent about twenty minutes at the entrance to Cambodia trying to tell me that the visa was $25 each, first with friendly chumminess, then with whining pleas, then with steely eyed threats and intimidation. I'd spent two months in his country before though, there was no way.)

A new taxi Mafia on the Cambodian border
We had a few problems with transport to Siem Reap, the taxi drivers have all been coerced, scared and bullied by a new taxi Mafia into only accepting tourists through them. Consequently the price of a car has almost doubled in the last 9 months. The man behind the desk was a little upset when I pointed this out and started to call him a gangster. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to remain in company till we could get out of dodge. Of course they've done such a good job scaring the other taxi's that there was no way I was going to find a private driver, I had to swallow my pride and pay them off.

Anyone else going the same way, be warned.

Ok, anyway, rant over. We got to Siem Reap safe and sound, albeit in two separate cars, and found a nice spot to stay, booked a couple of tuk tuk's to drive us around Angkor Wat the next day and ate that night in the place Andy and I spent our 30th birthday meal oh so many months before (they have live crocs in the restaurant). The next day was reserved for the ruins.

It was the smallest of temples, the furthest of temples. Banteay Srei was more than 30 km from the main Angkor complex, another $10 on top of our drivers already relatively large daily fee. It was isolated and small, but also beautifully decorated, more or less intact and possibly built for little midgets... we had to go.

Driving through the country outside of Siem Reap was a bit of a revalation. Traditional wooden farmhoses on stilts, rice paddies, melon fields and water buffalo hard at work in front of the plough. This was rural Cambodia clawing its way back from the brink of ruin at the hands of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. The people looked tired, but proud. We stopped at Amanda's insistance at one of the many 'local village workshop' stores and bought yet more stuffed macrame christmas tree decoration sewed by hand in some village co-operative. Well, you have to try and do your bit. If only it didn't leave us holding so much tat!

Homes for the little people (but not these guys)

The ruins when we arrived were worth the extra effort. It's basically a mini-temple, covered in elaborate sandstone carvings depicting scenes from the Ramayana. Everywhere you look are monkeys, demons and nagas. I say its a mini-temple, I mean really mini. The doors are all about 3 feet high, the rooves are about twice again head height. The common wisdom is that it was built like this to make the monks bend lower in worship. I think that's rubbish however. It's clearly a Khmer attempt at religious equal opportunities. This is where all the midgets and kids can go and pray without feeling left out. The evidence is clear. Its a temple for the short.

Banteay Srei... where's me pot'o gold?

Jet took us on a bit of a whistle stop tour on our way back to the main ruins, stopping quickly at a place called Pre Rup. Another temple mountain built to the same design as Angkor Wat but with a much smaller scale. Andy, Amanda and I ventured up the steps for all of five minutes until the whines of two girls selling postcards got too much to bear. We headed off to our last destination in Angkor.

Tomb Raiding

Ta Prohm is a massive temple city near the centre of all the action. Chosen by the archaeologists who did all the original clearing to remain untouched, a "concession to the general taste for the picturesque". Another way of saying left alone because it is hauntingly beautiful. It is unique in that it has so well merged with the surrounding jungle without yet becoming a part of it. It was also the place that most of the Lara Croft film was shot... a definite boost to our list of famous film sets visited.

The temple atmosphere is apparant as soon as you walk through the overgrown gates. Once we'd gotten rid of the kid who knew every capital City of every country in the world (a skill that earns him big bucks over here) it was apparant anyway. Down the long path to the centre of the grounds, huge trees looming on either side, insects everywhere, animal noises reverbrating from the murky green. This place was ace.

Clearly a magic faraway tree

Inside we all managed to split up. I wandered for a while through half collapsed rooms, stone edifaces held together by nothing but plant life. Moss and Ivy, algae and grass keeping together what gravity eventually was bount to destroy. Bodhi trees clung to the walls like huge celetial harms reaching from the sky, their claw like hands digging deep into the stone. I felt like a lone explorer, I think we all must have, and everyone else that was there that day. I sat in a central room, where a particularly memorable scene from Tomb Raider was filmed and waited for Amanda. It didn't take her long to find it. We continued together.

The end of Angkor Wat

Eventually we joined up with Andy and Dawn at the place where we'd all come in, found our taxi and left for the last time. It had taken us three days with a car to see maybe a third of all that Angkor Wat had to offer. Three days where we'd hopefully done justice to the place in the time that we had. I certainly felt like we'd had a bloody good go at it. It was really amazing, hard to catagorise in the experiences of old rocky stuff that we'd seen before. Certainly it ranks right up there with the very best, Machu Picchu, Petra and The Pyramids being the first three that come to mind. But there's something intangable about the place too, something that puts it in the same catagory as Uluru or Iguacu, a sort of Natural fusion with the works of man.

Beat that Cello!

Tired but happy we spent one last night in the town. This time we Chose to get 'Kultural' and found ourselves sat in a great air conditioned auditorium to listen to a Swiss doctor come and play cello to raise funds for his hospital charity. As it turned out we heard very little cello playing that night, though he was very good. Mostly he talked to us of his work with the Kantha Bopha hospitals, child health and tuberculosis. You really had to be made of stone not to be profoundly affected by his impassioned pleas for help, money and, most importantly for blood. Dr Beat Richner is somewhat of a maverick crusader in Cambodia. His ideas put him in conflict with the World Health Organisation, Save The Children, Medicin sans Frontiere and even Princess Ann to name but a few. We left feeling priviledged and lucky, determined to come back the next day and open our veins for the kids.

It's not easy to get out of bed in the morning at the best of times. After a three day walkathon through Angkor in the searing heat and humidity of May it's almost impossible. To then drag yourself to a local hospital, profer your wrist and allow a nice lady to stick a needle in it and take a pint of blood (to quote saint Hanckok, "thats a whole arm that is") is downright masochistic. For Andy and I this was old news, we'd given blood many times before. It was Amanda's first time and she REALLY doesn't like pain, she likes the thought of pain even less. I'm not sure how she did it. One pint later though and our civic duty was done. They'd gotten a goodly strong dose of B negative to keep them going. All we needed was one last dip in the pool and we'd be ready to go. We tuk-tuked our last in Siem Reap to the bus station, found the right teminal (it's all pretty easy with 50 locals anxious to be your friend) and left for Phnom Penh. The holiday was almost over. In two days Andy and Dawn would be flying back to Bangkok and we would be left alone again with our newly stocked bags and a whole continent ahead of us. For two of us the adventure was nearly at an end, real life was about to start again. For the other two the next adventure was just about to begin.

At last. After days of Bangkok, traveling through dirt and water, ducks and the ever-present mosquito, the time had come. We paid up, squared our shoulders and set our bags straight on our backs. Over the moat (almost 200m wide!) and through the outer walls, and there it was. Angkor Wat in all its fabulous glory. It was amazing to finally see the place up close. From straight on it looks like a palace with three tall towers. There are actually five, but the architects wanted to hide the last two as a nice surprise for later.
It being the silly weather season to come there were only a few hundred other tourists on the site, instead of the many thousands that could easily fit here. They should hold massive music festivals out here, it would really be awesome. We walked up the long causeway to the centre of its beautiful grounds, took a few piccies by the lake and the reflection of the temple... very arty. Then headed on to the main event.

Angkor Wat is the only part of the Angkor complex to have been in more or less continuous use since its foundation. It is certainly the least forgotten of the pack. It was built in the 13th century as a Hindu centre, then later converted to Buddhism as the country converted. Because of its huge moat the encroachment of the jungle has been much slower and much less damaging. This makes Angkor Wat the best preserved of all the Angkor buildings. Walking around its grounds it is easy to imagine it inhabited by thousands of monks, dancers, worshipers and clerks.

Andy and I decided it would make an amazing paintball game, maybe 1000 attackers, 500 defenders. We spent the rest of the day planning elaborate plans for its defeat. Not sure the antiquities department would let us near the place with that much paint though. Not if the bribe wasn't big enough anyway.

30 years young?.. or possibly just plonkers



Inside Dawn took on her role of guide and led us round the outer court, explaining the delicate relief carvings that adorn the walls. They mostly take as their subject the Ramayana, an Asian verion of the Indian classic. The adventures Rama and his friend, Hanuman, the Monkey God as they attempt to rescue Ramas wife, Sita who has been kidnapped by the evil Demon Leader Ravana. After much questing Rama and a big monkey army storm the island of the demons where he kills Ravana with his magic bow and takes his wife back. All very impressive, no less so carved into stone.

Rubbing all the delicate places...for luck!



The ouside was good, but the inside was awesome! Several small courtyards, the first with four empty pools for ritual bathing, washing sheep, drinking... whatever, then other smaller spaces, libraries and decorated walls. Buddhas filled every niche, some complete, most beheaded by the invading Thai armies that eventually depopulated the City. Still the nice little old ladies plied their insidious jostick trade. All smiles and pious prayers, other than that the place was very quiet. Most people come in the morning, see the sun rise and get out to some other part of the complex in their rush to see everything. That left very few people around as the day wore on, with more leaving all the time. By the time we'd negotiated our way to the very middle of the the inner court we were almost alone. It was wonderful.

Not the only ones waiting for the sunset



The views were magnificent, all across Angkor Wat to the forest beyond. The sun had begun to set, the earlier rains had more or less died and even a little bit of blue had begun to show in the sky. We sat at the top of our tower, legs dangling out of a high window and surveyed the scene. Mostly with a critical paintball generals eye, but also with an appreciation of its beauty.

Trying to be the last to leave
Our revery was interupted before long by the local security guard. Apparantly we'd been here longer than we'd thought. The site was about to close and we had to leave. We considered walking around in circles round the inner court with the guard on the other side so he'd never catch us. But there was more than one guard. I wouldn't put it past them to patrol in opposite directions. We dejectedly gathered our stuff, took a last few pictures and dragged our feet determined to be the last to leave.

From culturally aware to...
completely unaware



Back at the hotel there was no time for rest. Showered and dolled up in the groovy top Andy and Dawn had bought me I joined the birthday party and tuk-tuked into town. First order of birthday business was another massage from the lovely people at the seeing hands massage centre. Another one of those non-profit, NGO type organisations that Cambodia is chocka full of. This time to teach blind people how to do a great massage, well I'm all for equal opportunities. Our big b'day dinner was to be held at the Dead Fish Towers. A restaurant that sports an indoor putting green and crocodile farm! No-where else would do.

Andy and Jez with the only slices of cake... as it should be!



There were traditional Khmer dancers, curry, a couple of birthday doughnuts with candles in them (we all sang Happy Birthday but none of the other tables joined in! They must have been too cool). Andy and Dawn splashed out on some bubbly and Amanda and Dawn got a whole bottle of white (a VERY rare treat for my bettr half). Tonight was to be a night of throwing all caution to the wind. It was our first birthday together for years and the budget went out of the window the minute someone mentioned pineapple beer cocktails.

Spot the pineapple



'Somehow' we ended up in Siem Reaps 'Bar Street' sitting outside some tourists watering hole or another. Manus (who had managed to get up eventually and found the VIP tourist bus to Cambodia) was with us along with another Irish friend he'd picked up along the way. We also seemed to have attracted a crowd of an entirely different sort. Cambodia is poor, backward and crippled by years of strife, bloodshed and civil war. Thousands of its poulation have disapeared through the cracks in a non existant welfare system of a government made impotent by corruption. As we sat to have a drink at a street table on Bar Street a crowd of beggars, tuk-tuk drivers desparate to take us home, amputees and mine victims stood around us in a semicircle, each silently trying to get our attention for a dollar.

It got too much in the end. Giving money to beggars is fine, but just not possible out here. Not to everyone at least. There are thousands, each with a more deserving story, each more needy than the last. It really tears at your heart to see it and to be able to do very little about it longterm. We went home, still merry, this had been the scene since we'd arrived, just not willing to watch it and drink beer. We still had another day in Angkor Wat to go anyway, we needed to get a little beauty sleep at least. We weren't getting any younger you know.