June 5th -Day 17 – Angkor Wat

There’s no denying that Angkor Wat is the headline on the itinerary for this trip.  It’s the largest religious site in the world and our last major visit before the end of the itinerary.

The most popular way to visit Angkor Wat is at sunrise, so we scheduled to this – which meant meeting at 4:45am for our trip out to the temple. We had to meet so early because at 5am we had to buy our tickets, to get to the site before the run began rising at 5:30.  Since the hotel didn’t open breakfast until 6, I grabbed a quick protein bar in my room, a rather refreshing shower and met with the group at 4:45, just in time to be introduced to our local guide in Siem Reap.

Our 4:45am bus 

Queueing to get our tickets

My 3 day ticket, with stunning photo printed on there

We took the bus out to the ticket centre, where we queued up and had our photo taken.  The tickets are quite expensive ($40 for a 3 day ticket) and have photos printed onto them, so each of us had to present ourself even though the ticket price was included in the itinerary.

After we got our tickets, the bus driver raced with the rest of the tourists to head to the border of Angkor Wat, where we had to present our tickets to be allowed through the checkpoint.

As the bus dropped us off, the sun was just creeping up

Once we got off the bus, the photo opportunities didn’t stop.  Rather than give you a blow by blow account, i’m going to let the photos and comments on those do the talking.

Sun rising over the moat of Angkor Wat

More sunrise over the moat

Walking across the bridge over the moat

Our first proper glimpse of Angkor Wat

The silhouette is so famous

Reflections in the pool of water as day breaks

More reflections

Anonymous girl doing a pensive pose

Amazing silhouette reflections

ME! I was there!

Sun just starts to break over the building

Looking up the walkway

The clouds were stunning too

Cheeky Monkey stealing peoples lunches

Me, again!

I bought a coffee from Mr Ram Bo 2

Terrible coffee, of course

Daylight now

Such a beautiful site

Playing with exposure to see the true beauty

Amazing

Monkeys on the roof

A short rest

Some explanations of the use of the temple

Our guide

Graphics in the walls

All the windows have this form

Huge slabs of stone

Countless carvings

Everywhere you look

The detail is incredible

The structure is in pretty good condition considering it’s 800 years old

Wherever you look, it feels grand

And it goes on and on

The buddhas have had their heads stolen and sold

Some of it was very steep

We had to queue to climb these stairs

15 minutes wait

Loads of tiny carvings

My pass to climb the steep stairs

Going up!

Whoa, that was hard!

But worth it!

Reclining buddha and standing buddha together

Steve being a tourist

Courtyard at the top of Angkor Wat

People seem to like touching the breasts on the carvings

Steve again

You can take a balloon to view the site

Looking out over the walkway we entered via

More buddhas, everywhere.

Cats live up here

This carving had a block cut out – originally it would have had wood in there

More headless statues

People taking creative photos

Amazing place

Hard to imagine how it would have looked in it’s hayday

This was originally a pool, probably for blessings and baptisms or similar

More buddhas

Some of the stones still show their original colours

It was getting hot, our guide had a good solution to the heat

Heading back out of Angkor Wat

The sun really rose quickly

UNESCO sign

It was so hot inside Angkor Wat, and we spent around 2 hours exploring the site before it was time to head back to the hotel for breakfast.  It was hard to believe how much we’d achieved in just a few hours of the day – and there was plenty more to come! Since the weather forecast is bad for tomorrow, we tried to cram as much as possible into today.

I had a quick shower back at the hotel and then joined the rest of the group for breakfast before chilling out and regrouping at 10am to head to Bayon, the second most famous temple in the Siem Reap area.  Bayon is located inside an area known as Angkor Thom. On the way into Angkor Thom, we passed over one of the entry bridges which has 57 statues lining the side of the road, and came across a patch of monkeys including a particularly cheeky one who jumped onto someones motorcycle! Just as we finished photographing the monkeys, a group of Elephants paraded past. I’m not even making this up!

The East Gate at Angkor Thom

Amazing statues

Cool face!

Tuktuks bringing tourists into the temple

The gate from below

Detail of the heads

Our guide again

Monkey, riding a motorcycle!

Beautiful nature

They were so calm

New born monkey!!!!

Elephant parade!

So yes, it was 10am and i’d been to the biggest temple in the world, seen sun rise, seen monkeys, elephants and we hadn’t even got to Bayon yet.  Again, click the photos for details:

Bayon, the temple of faces

I was there, see!

Much of the structure was wooden, and of course no longer exists

Dek hiding from the sun

The amazing faces in the temples

The detail

Faces, everywhere

So. Many. Faces.

Our guide explains more

Tourist photo!

Faces. Faces. Faces.

Such an amazing place

Unbelievable.

Even the faces do tourist photos!

This one is famous

The structure is so imposing and amazing

This is without a doubt one of the most amazing places i’d ever visited

Leaving the site.

I have to say, Bayon blew me away. I’ve been to Machu Picchu, but it had nothing on this in terms of impression it left in my brain.  Bayon is insane. It’s from another world. The faces, the structure and the presence of the whole place was something else.

Shortly after our tour of Bayon, we stopped for a toilet break. I dared to go look at one of the nearby stalls, and bought some postcards and a t-shirt from one of the vendors there.  The vendors are borderline aggressive in their sales technique and once i’d bought, they followed me to the coach and tried to convince everyone else to buy from them as well. The amounts they’re asking are tiny ($5 for a t-shirt, $1 for 10 postcards!) but they persist until you agree!

After the toilet break we had time for one more stop – at a site known as the Elephant Lodge.  Again, it’s super famous and it was really cool to see all the intricate carvings and imagine how everything was constructed many thousands of years ago. The entire Angkor area must have been such a site back when everything was being constructed – almost all of the temples were constructed in a 100 year period.

More amazing carvings

The elephant ledge

Being tourists

This tree was super impressive too

The bus, warming up nicely in the heat!

After the Elephant Lodge, we headed to our lunch stop.  Lunch today was included thanks to G-adventures support of the New Hope foundation, a site which runs yet another training restaurant, but also a school, medical care facility and social agency for under privileged families in Cambodia.  We ate an amazing meal including Crickets (which I opted out of!) before getting a talk from the New Hope staff about the facility and the good work they’re doing.  They take volunteers so if you’re looking for something good to do with your life, you could do worse than look them up!

New Hope Cambodia

The Training Restaurant

Winner, my damp towel

Our dining table

Appetiser – peanuts, vegetable crisps, and crickets!

My pineapple juice

Spring rolls

Green Mango Salad

Vegetable curry

Chicken Cashew Nuts

Our talk from the New Hope staff

So, just to point this out – it’s now just after lunch time and i’ve visited 3 amazing historic sites, seen sun rise, eaten food prepared by underprivileged students being educated by a NGO foundation, and now we’re heading back to the hotel to avoid the heat. Today was definitely a sense of achievement day!

At 6pm we headed back into Pub Street for a few more cocktails and dinner – which ended up with me heading out to join a younger Gadventures group (on a YOLO tour) for a few more drinks after the rest of the group headed out. I had visions of staying out super late, but my energy level was pretty low by 11 and decided to head back to the hotel and be sensible – we had another pre-7am start tomorrow!

Cheap cocktails are my nemisis

But also delicious

Quest of the Gods – Day 7, Inca Trail ·Day 2

“The difficult day”.  That’s how they sold it to us!

We woke at 5am – I had slept pretty well, despite my single birthed tent.  I was dubious about how cold it might get in a single man tent versus the others, who were all sharing tents.  When it was time to wake up, the porters woke us by knocking the tents and offering us coca tea.  A nice warm tea to start the day is pretty ideal, especially when faced with the highest altitude of the trek!

Quickly after the coca tea disappeared a bowl of warm water replaced it, allowing me to shave and give myself a baby wipe shower.  I was very glad of this, since the prospect of not shaving for 4 days was bad, and the concept of not washing… worse!

By 5:45 we assembled for breakfast – another feast prepared by the chef!  Quinoa porridge (which tasted of cinnamon), followed by a pancake with caramel, and more tea!  Honestly, i’ve eaten worse in 5* hotels!  We were also given snack packs, and plenty of fresh water – today would be challenging!  The snack pack was an orange and a granola bar, but we had been warned to pack some snacks for day 2 ourselves so I added a couple of cliff bars which I had brought from Sweden.

Before setting off, I took one more look at the view from the campsite – incredible!  The scenery in this place is really stunning.

What a view to wake up to

Once we set out, the first 400m elevation climb was reasonably gentle with some occasional steps – a nice introduction to the day.  After that, the steps started, and boy did they start… as I wrote in my notes “it started with steps, then hardcore steps!”

Overall we climbed upto an elevation of 4215m above sea level, but we did take two “official” breaks plus plenty of smaller rest stops.  The trek itself was made more bearable by a game of “Who am i?” played by the group I was walking with, which consisted of Mark, Katie, Ruth, Simone and Javier.  We seemed to have quite a good pace going, and at times I was even able to lead the pack – an amazing feeling from my relative unfitness 18 months ago.  Playing a game whilst walking was a great tactic (thanks to Mark who suggested it) – it kept our minds focussed on silly things and forgetting the challenge ahead of us.

At the second official break-point, we gathered with everyone and we could see in the distance, the peak we would be climbing.  It was hard to stay motivated there, but the top looked so close… just 20 minutes of stairs to go!

The pass – from the second break point

The concept of the final climb was too much for Steffi

We took an extra long break at the second break point to really give ourselves a boost before those 20 minutes of stairs – and they were definitely a challenge!  As we got nearer and nearer the top, people were taking more and more frequent breaks – and we saw someone being encouraged on with “only 25 steps to go”.  Picking up on this queue, Ruth and I started counting down, backwards, from 25…. the counting got ridiculous and kept our spirits high even to the end, even if we did reach -10 before we actually got to the top!

Ruth and I, at the top

Top, selfie

Steffi made it too

She slept EVERYWHERE on this trip!

Stunning views from the top

The feeling of reaching that height was incredible.  I can say i’ve only had that feeling once before – the moment when I finished the Gothenburg half marathon.  Really, it was the same incredible feeling.  Huge emotional elation.

We had reached the top before 11am, which was an incredible feat – the scheduled time for us to get there was around 12:30, which means our pace was significantly faster than expected.  Hard to believe, considering the challenge of getting up there, but we all felt great knowing that we had done it!

We rested again at the top for around 30 minutes before snapping piles of photos and inevitably beginning the decent.

I’m going to stop here and mention something which my friend Simon had told me before the trail.  He did it a few years ago, and his main piece of advice to me was – “Day two was physically the hardest thing i’ve ever done in my life”.

You see, after climbing stairs up from 6am till 11am, we now were faced with 2 hours continuous down stairs.  It’s supposed to be the worst part of the whole trail.  So with some trepidation, we set off.

The stairs were honestly really hard going.  I started off fast, following Steffi (who does a lot of practice hikes in the Austrian mountains) but slightly twisted an ankle early on and ended up slowing up considerably.  By the end of two hours downhill, my two big toes hard turned into what felt like two huge blisters, and almost every step was painful.

We finally arrived at the camp site at around 13:00 – the plan today was to get all of the hike done before lunch, so that we could relax all afternoon and let our bodies recover.  As soon as we arrived at the camp site (with another round of applause from the porters), the porters seemed quite shocked.  Israel explained that our planned arrival time was 14:30, so they were quite unprepared for our arrival so early!  In the downtime, Steffi, Ruth and I headed down the hill slightly to a nearby stream where we gave our feet a relaxing soak!  The water was ice cold, so we could only manage a few seconds of exposure at a time, but each time we soaked them it felt amazing!  I also grabbed some blister plasters from my first aid kit… a welcome addition!

Feet soaking

Ruth and Steffi soaking their feet

After a bit of scrabbling around in the kitchen tent, lunch was served at 13:30 – complete with Condor shaped napkins!

Lunch table

Condor napkins

For lunch, we ate Semolina soup, a tortilla filled with courgette, rich and guacamole, roast potatoes, and a lemon pie for pudding. I also drank camomile tea afterwards, since we would plan to relax all afternoon.

I headed to the tent for a brief 20 minute nap, followed by chilling out in the dining tent and a few games of Shithead.  We kept adding rules to the game, which made it more interesting, and drinking copious amounts of teas.  Midway through the afternoon, Javier suggested we play a game he had been taught called Mafia.  The game was hilarious, and maybe not for the actual gameplay but rather for Javiers descriptions of horrible murders happening on the Inca Trail as part of the game dialogue.  A lot of blank faces around the group as he described how my walking sticks had exploded and killed me.  After an awkward 45 minutes of trying to play the game, we all secretly vowed never to play again.

Time passed quickly as we were all relaxed and in good spirits, and before long it was dinner time – angel hair soup, followed by rice and potatoes with some sort of pesto.  We were all practically falling asleep around the dinner table after a day of huge exertion, and there was a collective sigh when dinner finished and it was time for bed.  Israel warned us that the altitude would make tonight a very cold night so we wrapped up warm and headed to bed, satisfied that the worst was definitely over!