Site Report: Angkor Wat

Visits

• 2013-01-31: We took some fancy wifi bus to Siem Riep so that we could make the obligatory trip to Angkor Wat. Of course, the Wifi barely worked, but the novelty of it all was there. Then, we rented some bicycles from our hotel in order to make a trip to the ruins. We arrived at the ticket booth only to find that unless we wanted to pay an extra $20, we would have to wait 45 minutes to buy our tickets. Of course, 45 minutes later, every tourist in Southeast Asia was trying to push their way to the ticket checkers to get their "sunset" view of the ruins. We biked our way to the ruins, and I will have to say that my main impression was the huge number of smelly and loud tuk tuks. They were everywhere, and just about every couple of tourists had their own private tuk tuk. We walked around the main ruins (covered in scaffolding) for awhile before biking back into the city for dinner. The bike ride into Siem Riep was the number one most uncomfortable bike ride ever. It felt at every moment that we were going to get run down by one of the many tuk tuks. Also, it was very dark. We finally made it to the downtown area where we were able to get a fish massage and some excellent Indian food. Instead of running the risk of getting lost and then eaten by stray dogs, we put the bikes on a tuk tuk back to the hotel. My impression of the Angkor Wat complex was that it was worth maybe a one-half day visit, but of course we had to spend the whole day there. So, we rode the rental bikes all around. There were some rocks, there were some rocks that were rebuilt into temples, and there were even rocks with carvings on them. And there were some more tuk tuks and lots of tourists. None of the tourists could leave before having their picture taken in front of the tree roots.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• Around The World in 66 Days