Day 74: (26 July 2011):
- Wake up before 5am for sunrise.
- Lots of sellers give us advice then tell us go to their stall for breakfast.
- Cloudy, so decide not do sunrise at the pond location for view of wat & sun reflection. Outside scaffolding, so prob. not good view anyway.
- Explore empty dark temple until brighter & people show up. Atmospheric. Some fog patches around the vegetation outside temple.
- After negotiate & for extra charge, we got driver to take us to an interesting large temple we saw yesterday. Driver seemed net too happy, even though we think we paid more than fair price.
- Temple was not the one we expected, but is on map, so decide to check out. On hill. Can’t see temple from bottom.
- Surprisingly long walk up. See why driver is not convinced we’ll only take 30 min. “Safe way” “Danger way” (no entry) & “Elephant way” -> $20 w/ elephant.
- Pretty impressive wall & tiered temple at top. This is the temple for sunset?
- View of jungle, hills & fog patches. Rice paddies & Angkor Wat. Must be very impressive with city & hundreds of years ago. See baray.
- Back to hotel for nap. Arrange bus to Bangkok as Felix didn’t want to risk border. Only $8.
- Get tuktuk for rest of the day for $10. Ask him for suggestion in addition to Rulous group. Suggested floating village & forest.
- Lots of funny English in SE Asia. “Hump a head” sign.
- Long drive past temples. Find out boat price $20 each + $2 admission. No price signs around, so decide pay the amount. Wonder if driver gets commission.
- Long, very bumpy dirt track. “Tuktuk off roading.”
- Busy boat area. Tour buses. Got boat to ourselves.
- First, some houseboats & platforms tied to oil drums. Then the houses on tall stilts.
- Try dock at temple, but construction. Boats (some loaded with dirt) in way.
- Dock lower down. Street between 2 rows of houses. Metres under water in wet season floods, according to driver, who is from the village.
- Eat at restaurant. Someone’s house, as with many restaurants in Laos. See below through floorboard gaps. Surprisingly few & thin support beams. Forest behind house. Toilet pipes go straight into river? Swim & fish in river.
- Driver eat & talk. $1/day rent in Siem Reap. $4 petrol rt trip. Didn’t take offer of me pay for lunch.
- Big bowl of curry.
- Pigs & storage on lower levels, move to top in floods. Some old machinery chugging, remind me of steam punk anime.
- Visit temple. People sell books & pencils for children. Teacher was working on temple. Felix ask validating Q’s. Ask for & talk to teacher. Buy: $5/$4 for me since I only have $4. Then Felix give books to kids. I give pencil. Monk angry at all for not supporting temple. Felix ask teacher to show us classroom after. Long time for lunch to come.
- Rain. Drum with “do not hit” on it.
- Kids run towards a Korean group, who brought snacks for kids.
- Continue on boat to floating forest centre, where we can rent a canoe for $8. Driver advise we do not have time.
- Cool flooded forest. Calm. People, kids, villagers paddle through. Rain.
- Boat get to lake. Water as far as can see. Tea(with milk)-coloured brown. Waves & splashes look velvety. Large clouds. Cruise a bit & head back due to time constraints. “Battle” with larger boat on way back.
- Hectic dock. Ride back even worse due to rain & wet mud.
- 1st temple of Rulous: ~5min. Very small. A few ruined red/brown brick temples. Sell scarf: “I don’t need one.” “You don’t need one, you need two!” Rulous is older complex before Angkor.
- 2nd: bigger, series of small temples, no tiers. Text carvings. Nice forest setting & calm.
- 3rd: Bigger. Monastery beside. Aggressive child beggars. Tiers, central tall temple. Series of nice but ruined statues. Large complex with multiple blds. Take a quick look at chanting monks in monastery when leaving.
- Pay driver confusion. Decide tip. Felix: $12. Me: $ & riel, = $7. Almost 2x agreed price.
- Quick stop @ market. Tintin shirt (was that today?).
- Dinner at a place Mick Jager likes according to LP. Curry & dish with prahoc.
- Night market. Lots of Tintin posters. The Tintin amputee poster. Terrible but funny. Nice market: pretty much all souveniers.
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