Temples, Temples and more Temples....

Another temple day and it’s friggin hot. Oh my lord it’s hot, especially when you’re walking around temple’s for hours. It feels like you’re on the surface of the sun! It’s so bloody hot I’m worried my fake eyelashes will melt and fall off……

There are a lot of Korean tourists here and Sam, our guide, is not very fond of them. They are disrespectful and rude. He tells us to push in front of them all the time and I’m sure he swears at them in Khmer.

What truly amazes me about these temples is that you can climb all over them. They are ‘really old’, Sam keeps telling us which century they are from and provides loads of historical information, but I really don’t listen, I think parts of my brain have melted from the heat. I’m relying on Ian and Emily to repeat this information to me at a later stage. Spider Monkey, AKA Tom, thinks that it's fabulous being able to climb everywhere. However his enormous feet don’t tend to fit on most surfaces. The midget of the family on the other hand fits under all the doorways without ducking. As there are no real ‘rules’ surrounding these ruins its great fun to send Tom off in certain directions under the pretence of wanting to take photos of him. Not only does this give me a great deal of satisfaction it provides calm and tranquillity for a few minutes.

Palm Sugar!

Tom getting blessed, he needs lots of blessings..... 

      

Beyonce!

This is how the story goes. We flew a million miles to see one of the seven wonders of the world and I can guarantee the only thing the kids will remember from today is.........

We were at the very top of Angkor Wat Temple. The only way to get down is via a very steep, narrow wooden ladder, thus it becomes a bottle neck. We had waited around for a few minutes when a young girl behind me whispered to her friend 'I think that's Beyonce'. Our heads whipped around and standing next to us was Beyoncé - go figure! Tom immediately said 'Hey Beyoncé'. She politely said hello. We then asked for a photo which she declined. We descended the ladder and she was then surrounded by security. OMG, OMG, OMG - Emily nearly died as she had touched Beyoncé's hair. LOL

Apart from that we saw some really cool, old amazing temples. You know the ones that have been standing for century's and are nearly as famous as Beyoncé!

                       We really had an incredible day. I hired a guide, Sam, for 3 days. He drove us from one temple to another. Showed us back entrance's and nooks and crannies that we would have never found ourselves. I kinda went a wee bit over board on the photo's today but there was just so much to look at. Emily is hoping to see Obama tomorrow!

The eagles have landed!

We arrived safely in Siem Reap, cleared immigration and purchased our ‘Visa’s on arrival’ without any fuss. The first huge surprise for the kids, have to admit it freaks me out a well, is that they drive on the opposite side of the road. Emily announced immediately that she would not be driving anywhere while here. We all decided that that was fine with us as clearly there are many ways to die already in this country.

I had booked us a 4 hour quad bike tour for our first afternoon. I debated about this tour as it sounded so very ‘touristy’, however it’s not all about me, unfortunately, and I knew that the rest of the family would love it. You have to be 17 to drive the quad yourself, so it was a requirement that both the kids had an instructor on the back of their bike the whole time. This I thought was a marvellous idea as it significantly reduced the risk of Tom hurting himself. Ian and I had to take a test before setting out which consisted of riding down the road and back.  LOL

The tour was actually quite cool and we drove through some amazing country side. We saw lots of fields, rice paddies, buffalo and many local villages. I loved driving through the villages as all the local children waved and laughed, although how I didn’t take out a chicken or duck is beyond me as they were everywhere.  

When we stopped the children would all gather around. I would try and speak to them, of course they had no clue what I was saying. Ian and Tom didn’t quite know what to do, however Emily, who is clearly the most sensible member of the Clark family, decided to ‘Hi-Five’ them. This worked a treat and they all lined up to hi-five the strange white girl.

We also purchased a box of 50, 2 minute noddle packets which we then handed out to children at a local school. This was really cool!

Our hotel ‘The Angkoriana’ is crap-o-la. Our rooms weren’t ready when we arrived. They promised me 2 rooms together – there not. I have no proof but it appears they turn both the hot water and wi-fi off at night and they conveniently pretend that they don’t speak English when you ask questions hmmm….. Any Hoo. I must have left the shower tap turned on because suddenly water started pouring out everywhere unexpectedly this morning……. Ha ha ha

Today we start ‘templeing’. Hopefully the guide I hired for the next 3 days will be here to pick us up at 9am…. Just a tad excited this morning……  

 

The glorious 'Angkoriana' hotel...... LOL

 

Sydney to Kuala Lumpur completed!

We finally left Sydney, very weary, on our big adventure. 

Although the flight was only 9 hours it seemed to take forever. As predicted I was fortunate enough to grab the seat next to number one son - Thomas. OMG, first he wanted to sit by the window, which was fine until he then wanted to get up every 2 seconds. He was consistently hungry, no change there really, except he kept wanting to eat everything of mine! He then proceeded on a few occasions to try and stretch his nearly 6 foot body all over me. It was like sitting next to a big spider monkey.

His head phones broke, he spilt water over his jumper, that he left on the floor. He kept opening the window shades, which of course nearly blinded me every time and he thought he would try and push every button within vicinity. Good times so far....

As I needed to try and remember everything for 4 adults I forgot to pack my neck pillow. Thus I was one of those people who nods off to sleep only to wake themselves up again when their head jerks to one side.

We depart on the 6.50am flight in the morning from Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Look mum I saved you a seat!