Angkor's Away!

On our last day in Siem Reap we stepped out of the hotel, waved down a tuk tuk driver and negotiated a $10 rate for the next 4 hours of sightseeing. A little cheaper than the $60/day for our car, driver and guide - and our tuk tuk driver couldn't be any worse of a guide than ours from the previous few days. We visited the three much smaller Roluos temples which are clustered in an area about 30 minutes (via tuk tuk, probably a lot quicker in a car) from Siem Reap. They varied from mere ruins to large, elaborate and fully intact. At the first (Lolei), the one that was mostly ruins, we also visited the onsite monastery which was repainting its ceilings. About half of the paintings were already completed and I remarked to Aileen that many of the people in them didn't look Thai and looked more Western. She responded that it was probably due to lack of skill, as many of them didn't even look human and that one "looked like something out of Star Trek." These are the fun experiences on explorations like these! We passed a young couple getting a tour in English and in the 2 minutes I overheard I learned more than in the previous 3 days with our guide. I definitely suffered from guide envy for a moment.

Then off to the most intact temple of the three Bakong), which was one of my favorites of the trip, probably for the fact that it wasn't as busy as those closer to Angkor Wat. We had a great chat with the guard who checked our pass who wanted to know where we were from and explained all about the temple to us. Again, our free advice was better than that we had paid for! He clearly was very bored at the checkpoint and was excited both to talk to someone and also to practice his English. When we left a little boy gave me a ring made out of reeds, for which I paid my last remaining Riel, amounting to about 25 cents, and the guard said, "Your driver said you are only here for half a day!" We clarified that we'd already spent other days at the other temples and laughed to ourselves that they had clearly been talking about us.

After a brief spin around the final temple (Preah Ko), where we took more pictures of Aileen with Nandis, we asked our guide to take us to the village. He replied, "You've already been there!" It took many back and forth clarifications and the help of two other drivers before he finally understood what we meant. He told us, "Sorry I didn't know. Foreigners never want to go there - they only want to see temples!" Our trip to the local "town" involved a five minute walk through the market and the purchase of a bunch of mini-bananas, but we were glad we went to see how people live that don't reside in a city like Phnom Penh or large town like Siem Reap.

We had just enough time for lunch by the pool and a quick dip before we had to finish packing and set off for the airport. We had managed to sweet talk our way into an almost unheard of 2pm checkout time and took full advantage of it. We were at the airport almost 2 hours early, the recommended amount of time, which is ridiculous when you see the size of the place. Unfortunately Aileen and I were in separate terminals, as I was off to Bangkok and she was taking a domestic flight to Phnom Penh first. My flight left 40 minutes after hers, but you have to show your ticket to get into the terminal, so I couldn't wait with her. Also, our driver told us my terminal was very far away from hers. So we dropped Aileen off and I said a brief goodbye, as I'd be seeing her in Calcutta less than 48 hours later. We then drove about 50 feet and pulled up to a door to the international terminal. Heaven forbid I have to walk that! It was too early to check in, so I admired the Dairy Queen, one of about 6 shops in the airport. If I hadn't already had 2 doses of DQ while in Thailand and been stuffed from just downing 8 of my 12 mini-bananas (as I figured customs wouldn't let me bring them into Bangkok) I would have indulged. My flight was delayed about 40 minutes so I got to know all corners of the airport.

For some reason my flight on Bangkok Airways was on a plane painted with flowers and Edelweiss written on the side. Needless to say, I had the Sound of Music song stuck in my head for the entire hour-long flight. Then it turned out our pilot was German, with a think Bavarian accent. This was handy for me, as he announced everything in German as well as English and Thai - and was extremely more detailed in German. For example, in English he said the weather was nice in Bangkok. In German he said it was sunny, 80 degrees with a light breeze.

We landed around 7pm in Bangkok and I immediately headed back to the Sheraton where I'd be staying for the next few nights (yay Starwood points!). I decided to save some money and took the shuttle bus and then a tuk tuk down to the street to the hotel. I may be the only person who has ever arrived at the Sheraton by noisy tuk tuk with my suitcase on the seat beside me. I certainly got looks that said as much. In the lobby I was greeted by terribly cheesy Christmas music, but said to myself that there are a lot of bad Christmas CDs out there and you probably hit some of them when trying to keep up the variety over a long season. Then I turned around and realized the source of the music the lobby bar where a man with a synthesizer and two blonde women in red, satin Marilyn Monroe type dresses were jamming away. I was so excited to get to my room and my movie channels!

(Pictures of Angkor Wat to be added as soon as I get them online... hopefully very soon!)