Temples, Temples, Temples

We stumbled to the breakfast buffet around 6:15 a.m. and quickly woke up – the food was too good to be ignored. Upstairs in the lobby a few minutes later, bellies happy, we met Kuy Vy, our guide from Sage Insights who was taking us on a tour of the temples.

We started out at Angkor Wat – a one-day pass for $20 got us into all of the temples in Siem Reap. We climbed up through the ruins and descended on the other side into the temple grounds. To our right, a group of three monkeys was having a morning chat, oblivious to passersby. They were only the first “wildlife” we would encounter that day.

Vy was expert at knowing his way around the temples – we went through Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and La Prohm – the latter being the location for the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movies. I won’t try to recap all the history and culture of the temples – way too much, but there are lots of good websites. Just Google any of the temple names.

I’m more than a little squeamish over creepy, crawly things, yet the morning turned out to be full of them. Entering the first passageway, we noticed (what we thought was) a large spider on Vy’s back. We told him so. He said “a really big one?” To us, yes. He turned to look, shrugged, lifted it off his back and placed it gently on the wall where it scurried off.

Later, a lady walks by with a grasshopper on her arm – a grasshopper that might qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records. Kate hurried away from it, but for some reason, this lady decided Charlie should have this grasshopper on his shirt. She walks up and starts trying to deposit it onto him. He said “no, thanks.” Vy and I were watching this from a distance and he told me that many visitors respond like that. But locals are used to it; in fact, they see the insects as food when necessary. He explained – we are a poor country and we can’t be so particular about what eat.

Later, we arrived at La Prohm and I’m admiring the temple from a distance before we go inside when someone slapped me on the back. I turned to see who it was. A small Chinese lady said “sorry, but there was a huge bee on your back.” I screamed. Not because of her slap, that had only made me curious, although for a small person she delivered quite a smack. My scream was elicited by the mention of the bug which had just recently been touching me for pete’s sake. She was with a large group, and my scream brought down the house. They were laughing and pointing. In fact, most of the tourists turned to see what has causing all the commotion. When these things happen early like this, it’s nice. At least my odds of another embarrassing moment are slim and I can enjoy the remainder of the day a bit more secure that I won’t do something that makes me look like a total idiot for perhaps another 24 hours.

We stopped to take photos with the monks – Charlie stood between us at Vy’s instruction as the monks are not allowed to touch women. Then we went off to another great lunch and back to the hotel for the afternoon. We hung out at the pool with our friend, Bun Von, and talked to another tourist, a young Aussie girl who lived and worked in Vietnam and had come over for holiday.

In the evening, Vy arranged dinner for us at Kullen II, a dinner buffet and cultural show. Food was good, and the dancing was beautiful. We had fallen in love with Siem Reap and its people and were looking to more adventures the next day.

Temples