111715
Temples today. The hotel provided us with a take away breakfast which was amazing and full of protein (2 hard boiled eggs, toast, bananas, watermelon, dragon fruit). We found that the overnight attendants here in Asia end up setting up a tent or hammock so they can also sleep and be awaken if needed. 445AM pickup by Mr Dany and first stop was to purchase a 1 day pass for $20USD which also has your photo on it. We slightly beat the tourist buses in and then drove through and walked into Angkor Wat and positioned ourselves with majority on the left side by the pond so we can get the reflection as the sun started to rise. Even at 5AM, the air was thick and humidity was already picking up. The sunrise was pretty nice and we explored Angkor Wat until about 7-730AM? then met up with Mr Dany and he took us on our way to the next temple – Banteay Kdei. This was my favourite that we went through as it wasn’t too big but very intricate and beautiful patterns and designs etched into the stone walls. Phimeanakas has one main building that can’t be climbed but has a giant land which takes you to another section that has a huge catwalk to get to the main building that you can climb to the top. Ta Phrom has the overgrown trees that have taken over the temples which is quite beautiful but not for long when there are huge Korean and Chinese tour groups going through. Tomb raider was filmed in this area with Angelina Jolie. We ended up exiting from the other end and instead of just going back through, we decided to walk around the side which ended up being a long long journey in the heat to get to Mr Dany. NOTE- walk back through to get back to the front.
We all suffered a little bit of heat exhaustion and walking around temples at 11-noon is so difficult. Angkor Flower for lunch because of the aircon. I had the fried noodle with seafood and a Cambodian tea with milk. And finally Angkor Thom because we were all suffering from heat exhaustion, we were to walk over to the area near Angkor Thom to meet Mr Dany but there are few temples in the surrounding area. Bayon was a beauty to be seen although we didn’t actually go into it as we were so exhausted. I really wish we had the energy to explore it. Those faces everywhere make it so picturesque and in my opinion is a much more photogenic place to explore than Angkor Wat. I really wish we had visited Bayon instead of Phimeanakas and Angkor Thom. It is outside Bayon that we saw this group of Korean tourists taking a group photo with a very stoic look by also with peace signs. This started an epidemic with my group for photos.
We all took a dip in the pool then Adam and Amy decided to nap and Andrew and myself found ourselves at Nice Cool for drinks – You just can’t beat a nice atmosphere with $.75USD giant drinks. Ice coffee with milk to go and of course the green tea with milk. We came back and Andrew joined them in a nap for 30 minutes before we had to get ready to leave for dinner. We chose Damnak Lounge Fine Dining – Road 6, Kruos Village at the Lotus Blanc Resort, It was a 4 course menu $25USD + tax.
Adam chose the degustation menu ($35 – 3 course) and we chose the Khmer tasting menu ($25 – 4 course). I got the Noam Makak to start – Makak fruit, dried smoked fish dried shrimps and roasted coconut with fish sauce. Followed by the Sailor Machu Teer – duck with lemongrass and marker leaf soup. For my main course, I got the Sach Ko Ang Dot Kul Slockkrey – grilled beef with lemon grass skewers with tomato, onion and garlic kalian. Then dessert was chek chhoeng – assorted fruits and banana glazed in palm sugar – similar to banana fosters. All very tasty and a little salty compared to all the meals we’ve had here.We got the Lotus Resort tuktuk to drive us home but he literally drove to the night market and we had to ask him to let us off so he didn’t go all the way in. NOTE: Tuktuks don’t know addresses but general areas so if you want to goto a specific area, they need a number of the place so they can call and confirm a location. $2USD for the ride home.
