SIEM REAP

Author: Deb /

Friday, January 29, 2010








I had a busy couple days traveling from Chiang Mai to Siem Reap. Wednesday I took a cooking course in Chiang Mai. It was a lot of fun. It was run by Nancy and her family at their house just outside of Chiang Mai. I was lucky that the class size was small (only 5 people) so lot's of individual attention and we made tons of great Thai food...I was SO full after 6 courses. After the cooking class I made a mad dash from the hotel to the post office before it closed at 430pm and shipped a box of stuff home....I did a little shopping and didn't want to carry it with me for the next 6 weeks. Then off to the train station for my night train to Bangkok. The Chaing Mai train station is really nice and the train was good. I have always loved sleeping on trains, I sleep so well with the rocking motion of the train. The train was 2 hours late into Bangkok so I had to make a mad dash for the airport to take my 1130am flight into Siem Reap, Cambodia.

I didn't know what to expect from Cambodia or from Siem Reap and was a little sad to be leaving Thailand but I was really pleasantly surprised to LOVE Siem Reap! It's a really cozy small city with a beautiful river running through it complete with rows of trees and green spaces, it's small and easy to get around in and my hotel is really nice. I have a stone bathtub on my balcony!!! It's super private and I had a great bath in there tonight.
Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat. It was a highly advanced civilization built from 802-1220AD and abandoned after being sacked by the Thai's. It was rediscovered hundreds of years later, it wasn't known to the world until the early 1900's and shortly after restoration started. It was lead by a team from France. Angkor consists of 100's of stone temples. I have a 3 day pass and am going to see what I can!
Today my favourite was Bayon. It has 100's stone faces carved into it. It didn't look like much from the ground but as I started to climb it that faces popped out from everywhere!
Angkor Wat was also spectacular! It's so large you can see it from town 6km away. It's on 400 acres, surrounded by a moat and has the largest continuous bas relief in the world.
I want to write more but I am so tired I can't keep my eyes open. Tomorrow I am heading back in to see some more of the temples...more then.