Mount Kinabalu, Borneo

Mount Kinabalu, Borneo

The journey

This is the travel blog of Alkit Patel on his adventure from London to Beijing by train, and beyond into other regions of China and South East Asia.

I have brushed aside my usual form of transport, the motor car, and opted for public transport by which I have travelled some 20,000 kilometres across 13 countries over six months.

The journey will take me to:

Belgium – Germany – Poland – Lithuania – Russia – Mongolia –
China – Thailand – Laos – Cambodia – Vietnam – Malaysia – Singapore

My fundraising effort with the 'tube' has raised £3,086 for Mines Advisory Group thus far. For more information or to donate, click here.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The wonder that is the ancient city of Angkor

Siem Reap is home to the ancient city of Angkor, home of the Khmer empire from the 9th century to 15th century.

I spent three days going to visit some of the many temples in the area. The place was quite spectacular. In my mind, a candidate for the Eighth Wonder of the World. Despite a long and tiring three days travelling from temple to temple on a moto, where it was either soaring under the bright blue skies or torrential monsoon rains, it was well worth it, even though I was constantly hounded by beggars and touts trying to sell you anything by any means possible. There were often many very steep steps to climb too, which was fairly scary, especially in the pouring rain. I took hundreds of pics, but here are a few of my favourite temples:

Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the temples at Angkor



The spectacular Bayon, which resides in Angkor Thom



Ta Prohm, spooky and also used as a location for the film Tomb Raider



The much smaller, but very impressive Pre Rup temple



The amazing Preah Khan temple



One of many spectacular gates to the temples



Banteay Srei, a little further out, but well worth the visit



Amazing carvings at Banteay Srei



Me at Angkor



It was very wet on day two and three



Bakong, one of the three temples at Roluos



Siem Reap was the largest city I had been to for quite some time and I made the most of it. Dead Fish restaurant was a really cool venue with live music and crocs!



I went out most of the five nights I spent in Siem Reap (yes, five nights), always starting at Angkor What bar. I met lots of people here too, some I had met on my travels in Laos, but also an Intrepid group. We ended up going to Zone One, the only nightclub in town and full of dodgy locals. X Bar was the only other place to go out late and despite being fairly dull, I did manage to stay there until 5am on two occasions.

Despite being a fantastic, must-see place in Cambodia and arguably the world, I was very disappointed by the people. Many were impolite at best, sometimes down right rude. Yes, there the high levels of poverty in Cambodia was very evident, but I found that difficult to excuse the behavious of most hawkers, kids, hotel staff etc. Also, despite being a poor country, I didn't feel the Cambodians necessarily were particularly hard-working, often seeing many of them mulling around on sidewalks playing cards, drinking or on mobile phones.



I left with my tube to head to the beach in Sihanoukville.

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