Angkor temples at sunset
Oct. 25th, 2008 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julietGot to Siam Reap this afternoon, & after some kerfuffle with hotel rooms have fetched up with an enormous room in a place at the end of a impressively potholed dirt road. I discovered that you can get your ticket for the temples the evening before (thus avoiding the queues the next morning around sunrise), so hired a bike and pottered up off the road.
Accidentally got into a small race with four of the local youth also on bikes, which was entertaining (well: they overtook me one by one, and then were just in front of me and grinning at me in a cheerful fashion, and what was I supposed to do? I was actually surprised by how categorically I dropped them; obviously I'm not quite as unfit as I thought I was getting).
After some debate bought the 3-day ticket (I can only stay for 2 days, but it's 2 x the 1-day price), which it transpired also meant that you get an hour that evening for free. So I headed up to Angkor Wat for an hour around sunset. It really is fantastic, incredibly impressive; I'm really looking forward to going back tomorrow. (This does mean I'll only get half a day in Bangkok, but never mind.)
(There is a chap at the computer next to me who is saying, oh, $40, I don't think I'll bother. Crazy. Mind you, he seems to be in a bad mood generally.)
Coming back along the impressively potholed road on the bike in the dark was exciting, in a slightly splashy way. It's definitely the rainy season here, although I've managed so far not to get caught in it.
Accidentally got into a small race with four of the local youth also on bikes, which was entertaining (well: they overtook me one by one, and then were just in front of me and grinning at me in a cheerful fashion, and what was I supposed to do? I was actually surprised by how categorically I dropped them; obviously I'm not quite as unfit as I thought I was getting).
After some debate bought the 3-day ticket (I can only stay for 2 days, but it's 2 x the 1-day price), which it transpired also meant that you get an hour that evening for free. So I headed up to Angkor Wat for an hour around sunset. It really is fantastic, incredibly impressive; I'm really looking forward to going back tomorrow. (This does mean I'll only get half a day in Bangkok, but never mind.)
(There is a chap at the computer next to me who is saying, oh, $40, I don't think I'll bother. Crazy. Mind you, he seems to be in a bad mood generally.)
Coming back along the impressively potholed road on the bike in the dark was exciting, in a slightly splashy way. It's definitely the rainy season here, although I've managed so far not to get caught in it.
