At ungodly-o'clock this morning, we piled onto a boat in the rain for what is dubbed "Cambodia's most enchanting boat ride" for the six-hour trip across Tonlé Sap Lake (Southeast Asia's largest lake) to Siem Reap. Aside from the deafening engine noise, it started out enchanting enough I guess, coasting towards the lake past cute riverside villages, and the wake from our boat almost capsizing every little boat we passed.

Then civilisation ended (for now) and we started to wind our way through these little waterways which were too narrow for our boat hehe.

Everyone on either side of the boat had to dive for cover (including grandma and granddad there) as large branches threatened to ruin the enchantment by taking their face off as we smashed past them.

Add to that all this leafy shit we ran over, and we inevitably had to stop to clear the propeller hehe.

I then went and sat up on the roof with the cool kids.

Then we started passing through copious numbers of floating villages, living on the largest lake in Southeast Asia.

Home sweet home.

We stopped several times while locals approached the boat to either drop off or collect supplies. Being miles from land, boats like the one we're on are a lifeline for them.

We eventually found open water and some time thereafter arrived in Siem Reap. What followed was a 20-minute tuk-tuk ride on roads that can only be described as punishment for something we did in a past life (and these Cambodian tuk-tuk's don't have suspension). By the time we made it to our hotel, Kristina had almost pissed her pants and I feel like I need a chiropractor. Anyway, tomorrow we check out the one of the biggest attractions of Southeast Asia - Angkor Wat! :)

Such is the nature of this trip, our plans keep changing a little from day to day, and today the following changes have been decided: we're going to spend two days here in Siem Reap rather than three; we're going to see some of the other nearby Angkor temples in the area today and get up at bloody 4:45am tomorrow to see the sunrise from Angkor Wat - the greatest temple and attraction in the whole country; and we'll fly out to New Zealand on December 9th rather than the (very tentative) 22nd as per the original plan. Oki doki. So then, Siem Reap - Cambodia's third-largest city and yet home to only 1% of them (about 150,000). The city is really nice in parts, thanks largely to its booming tourism industry bringing in the dollar-dollar-bill-y'all (the US Dollar is the currency of choice here) as well as foreign investment looking to capitalise on it. That booming tourism is in turn thanks to the temples of Angkor for which Siem Reap is the perfect base.

The Angkor region served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. During that period, there was a frenzy by the kings of the time to build temple after temple worshiping whatever god was in favour. Lonely Planet calls them "the ultimate fusion of creative ambition and spiritual devotion". The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument (more on that tomorrow). Many of the temples have been restored, and visitor numbers approach two million per year. The temples are a source of profound pride to all Khmers (the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for about 90% of its 15 million inhabitants) and the symbol of Angkor Wat appears everywhere, not least of all on Cambodia's national flag.

So as I mentioned above, our plan was to check out a couple of the big-name temples today, have the big daddy of them all - Angkor Wat - mostly to ourselves at sunrise tomorrow and visit some other nearby goodies afterwards. Groovy.

We've hired a tuk-tuk driver for these couple days to transport us round, and this is outside the first temple we had him dump us at. As soon as we stepped foot off the tuk we were engulfed by people trying to sell us books and scarves and table cloths and carvings and you name it. That dork on the left tried to sell us his Chinese violin hahaha! What the hell would we do with that, or even fit it in our luggage?!

This dude was taking a sweet shot of his wife's ass, who was wearing the same shirt as him.

Anyway, this was our first temple - Ta Prohm. Construction started on this beauty in 1186 to serve as a Buddhist monastery and university.

To give you some idea of the size of this place, spot little old Kristina there.

Ta Prohm has all but been engulfed by the jungle, with massive centuries-old trees growing out of the ruins.

Ta Prohm has been left in much the same condition as it was found by European explorers. It looks like something straight out of Indiana Jones, and in fact Ta Prohm was used as a set for shooting both Tomb Raider and Two Brothers (of which I've seen neither).

Anyway, I've run out of shit to say, and there's plenty more info in the Wikipedia link above so here are some more random shots of our frolicking here.

Big roots!

And a nice up-skirt shot of Kristina to finish off with. Lovely.

After a couple hours of that we jumped back in the tuk, drove through the awesome Cambodian countryside, and hoped like hell it wouldn't rain.

Our second temple: Banteay Srei.

This one is much smaller in area than Ta Prohm, but equally impressive. This is/was a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva (I'm sure he was impressed too) and construction started in 967.

Banteay Srei is particularly famous for having (supposedly) some of the finest stone carving anywhere on earth, and it's everywhere - on the walls, above the doorways, and really is impressive stuff!

Out the back was this chick bathing her daughter in the pond (ewww!)...

...and this dude playing a leaf. Yup, leaves - who knew?! He needs to hook up with that dude from earlier trying to sell his Chinese violin.

On the way out of the temple you're routed through the usual mayhem of market stalls, and they swarm all over you like flies to shit! "You buy something?! Cheap cheap! Looking free! You want a Chinese violin?!"

And with that we called it a day, and headed back to Siem Reap. If I'm getting up at 4:45am tomorrow and that bright thing in the sky doesn't make an appearance on cue, I'm going to be pissed.

So the last thing I said yesterday was that if the sun doesn't show itself on cue for sunrise today (after us getting up at 4:45am to come see it) then I'd be pissed. Well it turns out the sun was the least of my worries. We made it out of bed, our driver was here on time, and we got ourselves a good spot in front of Angkor Wat to see the sun rise over it. With about 30 minutes before it was due to appear, I pull out my camera to get some snaps of the colourful red sky. I turn the camera on and it says "No card in camera", which translates to "After you got done updating your website last night you didn't put your memory card back in me, dickhead." No worries, I'll just use the memory card out my little camera. Oh yeah - I didn't bring it this morning, and Kristina hadn't brought hers either hahaha - fuck! So I ran the 400 metres back out of the temple complex to the road, flagged down a motorbike taxi (called a "moto"), and asked him to take me to my hotel and back "bloody fast", which he did hehe. I made it back with a few minutes to spare before the show started and got my precious bloody snaps.

So then, Angkor Wat - the biggest tourist attraction in Cambodia (if not Southeast Asia), and the world's largest religious building. This is the largest and best preserved temple of all the Angkor Temples, and the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation way back in the 12th century. It was built for the king Suryavarman II as his state temple and capital city. The entire complex covers an area of almost 200 hectares. It is surrounded by 3.6km of outer wall and moat (not visible here), with the moat itself being 190m wide. The temple itself stands in the centre and covers an area of nine hectares. It consists of a pyramid of three levels, and the summit is crowned with five towers (four on each corner and a big one in the middle as can be seen here).

Oh and there are monkeys all over the place.

The outer wall of the first level.

And this is what lies within. The temple was made from more than five million tonnes of sandstone, transported by raft along the Siem Reap river from a quarry 40km away. By the 12th century, Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in the use of sandstone as the main building material. The blocks were presumably put in place by a combination of elephants, ropes, pulleys and bamboo scaffolding. According to Wikipedia, one modern engineer estimated it would take 300 years to complete Angkor Wat today; the Khmers did it in less than 40.

The galleries contain a lot of headless statues, supposedly lopped off by enemy groups as a show of power. I've towed people's letterboxes away with my car for similar reasons.

Angkor Wat is also particularly famour for its extensive bas-reliefs depicting various religious symbolisms that were completely lost on me.

Kristina pretending to swim in what I assume used to be some sort of pool. Considering how small she looks this should give you some idea of temple's size.

When you're feeling fit and ready, you can climb the steep steps to the upper level - something only the most important of the important were allowed to do back in the day.

And this is what's up there: more galleries, the towers, and more bare-breasted ladies on the wall.

And the views from the top of the complex and the surrounding jungle are pretty awesome.

Contemplative monk is contemplative.

Speaking of monks, Kristina made friends with some while trying not to touch them (very taboo apparently for a chick to touch a monk hehe). In Southeast Asia there is a long tradition of temporary ordination as Buddhist monks. During a school break, many young men usually ordain for a week or two to earn merit for loved ones and to gain knowledge of Buddhist teachings. Anyway, some three hours after we arrived (and I left and came back again) we decided we'd seen enough.

It certainly lived up to expectations, and I guess was worth the 4:45am start (I've never been a morning person - more of a night owl).

From Angkor Wat we headed up the road, through this gate, and into Angkor Thom. Covering an area of nine square-kilometres, it was the last and most enduring capital of the Khmer Empire.

There are several monuments located here, the main one of which is the Bayon - built in the late 12th century or early 13th century as the official state temple of the King Jayavarman VII.

The Bayon's most distinctive feature is the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak.

Faces everywhere.

Kristina gave this one a 'kiss'...

...and I scratched this one's nose - he seemed pretty happy about it (unlike the security guard behind me).

After the Bayon we decided we had one more temple left in us, and so ventured a little further to this - Preah Khan. Yet another one constructed during the 12th century (the amount of time these things have been standing here is bloody amazing) and also for the King Jayavarman VII. This was the centre of a substantial organisation, with almost 100,000 officials and servants. The temple is a flat design with a basic plan of successive rectangular galleries around a Buddhist sanctuary.

Preah Khan has been left largely unrestored, with numerous trees and other vegetation growing among the ruins.

Find me in this photo and win a dollar.

It was now midday and we were temple'd out. We headed back to Siem Reap and straight back to bed hehe. And that's that for Siem Reap and for Cambodia. I gotta say this country has really impressed me - neither of us really knew what to expect but it's proven to be an awesome week or so! Tomorrow morning it's another early start (great) for an eight-hour bus back to Bangkok where we started this trip exactly 50 days ago. As far as we know, despite most of the city being under flood waters, the city centre is dry and if the buses are running then it must be ok. From Bangkok we're heading straight down to Phuket and the surrounding area for a week of beaches :)

This morning we were packed like sardines into this bus and dispatched across the border back into Thailand. There we were stuffed like sardines into a van and dispatched back to Bangkok, meaning we've now completed our loop of Southeast Asia as per our route map :)

This time we're staying in the Khaosan Road area which is pretty popular with backpackers. And after 50 days on the road, we finally popped our street food cherry. We'd been warned through guide books and various stories of upset stomachs that the street food is perhaps best left to the locals, but this one looked pretty legit (I guess we'll see in the morning).

Much of the outer areas of Bangkok are still flooded, although we saw none of it on the way in. City officials have managed to keep the city centre dry so far by diverting flood waters around it (at the sacrifice of outer suburbs), but be that as it may a lot of these temporary walls have been put up in front of shops and even cash machines should the situation change.

To ensure what happens in Bangkok stays in Bangkok ;) Anyway, tomorrow night we take our fourth overnight sleeper-bus of the trip down to Phuket!