Phnom Penh to Siem Reap

yoyoyo wazzup homies!!!

we were in phnom penh for a couple of days, more than we wanted to, but we had to take care of our lao visa, and that took us a few days. so we hooked up with eva and kristof, a nice belgian couple we accidently ran into, and eva knows a good friend of anke's from school, so i guess yes the world is rather small! we had dinner the first night, poker the second and a really difficult quiz night the third, and in between we just went shopping at the markets. as for the city, it's ok, but it's nothing special. loud, crowded and hot... means very asian! that said, we did enjoy our time here! visa fixed, we were on our way to Siem Reap, home of the ever-impressive Angkor Wat. The small town itself could easliy have been on the spanish coast, right in between Benidorm and Salou. It is by far the most touristy place we've been to, but oddly enough it has kept its cool and gentleness. there are classy bars, clubs and diners everywhere, but there is enough of that old-fashioned cheap market-feel as well, so it's nicely enduring. We bought ourselves a 3-day pass to go and see the temples. One day is just not enough we guessed, and we were right. This place is huger than huge. It's an archeological temple-park, they are just scattered all around the place! we rented a bike, drove for miles on end, and the temples kept on going, and it must be said, they are astonishingly beautiful, so much you just have to see them all. of course that wasn't quite possible, so we skipped a few. The second day we tuc-tucced the whole way to Banteay Srei, about 40 km out of town, not a big one, but probably the best preserved, especially in carvings. People here say they had to be done by women's hands, so elaborate and refined no man could ever have achieved such delicacy! true... the driver parked us right outside Ta Prohm, after which we decided to head further on foot. It was a long enough way back to Angkor Wat, but we made it and the reward was smiling gently on us... a sunsoaked Angkor Wat to tinkle the senses! Now, you have temples and you have temples, well this is just the mother of all temples. It is H-U-G-E and it is beautiful, and we were in awe. But i guess we were having clear indications of temple-overload by the end of the day, and given the fact that our attention was pointing towards a nice extra outside the temple, we were kind of rushing through it. That nice extra came in the form of a free MTV-awareness concert, informing locals on the perils of human traficking. The stage was set in fornt of Angkor Wat and anyone could attend for free, only if you had a ticket though. We didn't but we stayed on and finally could slip in, like a few hundred other people. The line up was a very impressive Click Five, Duncan Sheik, Kate Miller-Heidke and none other than Placebo! We stayed till the end, and had to say we were very glad to have done so, because the concert was - oh my god!- absolutely amazing. we loved it! we got back pretty late in town though but still managed to grab a bite. Next day we were off by bus to head for Kratie, which we didn't make. We're kind of stuck in Kompong Cham, a sleepy river-town but nice enough. Tomorrow we go all the way to Stung Trang, hopefully go into Cambodia's wild, which is Ratanakiri.

See you all later