There was not much time to take a breather or think about the near future in the last couple of days, with all the worries about the bike. Now that we made it here, it became both evident and pressing that we did not have formulated any kind of further plan or done our research for the temples of Angkor. Over dinner last night, a plan evolved. We would go for a 3 day pass and stay either 3 or 4 days in Siem Reap.

We immediately started with another fail. After obsessing for what Nina assures me was “forever” over where to stay the remaining two nights, I ended up with this beautiful place. Pool, chilly atmosphere – upper end of our budget, but we stayed very cheap last night, right? Well, it turned out the reason I found this gem was that I only booked one night – at the price of 2 of our usual digs. No wonder the place is that nice :). We made it up by adding another night at the super cheap dig to even things out. To be fair, for $13 NZ including breakfast, it was a good deal. The breakfast was not too shabby, if lacking variety and we have paid more for much dirtier rooms in Indonesia.

We cleared out our panniers, geared ourselves light and headed out towards the temple complex of Angkor. Angor Wat is just the most famous of many temples, monasteries and other massive projects in the larger area of the former Khmer capital of Angkor. The area is vast and to explore it, some form of transport is required. Which led us to hoping and crossing our fingers that we would be allowed to go in with Rocinante.

The 3 day tickets come at a fair price of $40 US per person – given the international reputation of the site and everything else being so cheap. Even better than getting our tickets with no hassle was the confirmation that we could indeed explore the area at our leisure with our bike. Wohoo!

Following the three day exploration advice from the Lonely Planet, we left the mighty Angkor Wat aside (other than the glimpses while passing it, since that is the way to go) to explore the north east of the area. First on our list was Preah Khan.

This temple was build in the late 12th century and was dedicated to both the Buddah as well as the Hindu gods Brahma, Shiva and Vishu. It was definitively a good start, although we were still a bit lost regarding the iconography. Maybe the most impressive bit so far were the carvings on the entrance bridges we passed. Rows of humanoids engaged in a “tug-o-war” using a Naga for a rope. This symbolises the “churning of the ocean of milk” – a piece of religious mythology that we will have heard more often by the end of this day than we may ever have asked for.

Preah Khan’s most interesting feature is a two story building with columns that looks pretty out of place here. It looks like it fled ancient Greece to live in exile here with the Khmer. Then again, there must have been knowledge about the Persian and European realms beyond India, so one can speculate.

After a little refresher, we moved on to Preah Neak Poan, a small tower set in a lake within a massive Baray. Barays are massive rectangular water storage basins that formed part of the Khmers irrigation systems. The Baray and the moats surrounding the larger temples have been cleared and flooded once more and are in my mind as impressive feats of engineering as the temples are.

It was time to head back for lunch. We decided to treat ourselves a little bit and go for one of the “dining for a cause” recommendations from the Lonely Planet. The “Marum” is a training restaurant, training young Cambodians up to western standards in hospitality. The staff was great and the food even better – even though I am still a bit on the fence about the core premise here. It felt very neo-colonial to see young and bright people train hard only to archive the proper “servant” rank for my dollar laden western desires.

Food porn!

Nina’s comment: Half of the staff is also trained in cooking in a restaurant kitchen. Also, even the waiting staff is learning English and, in the hospitality section, this can only be an advantage. Also, the food was so yummy. I had decided on “Marum” because it offers a range of vegetarian foods. In the end, we ordered three vegetarian tapas: rice paper rolls filled with grilled pepper and goat cheese with a tamarind dip (Flo’s favourite), smoked eggplant dig with Indian crackers (my favourite) and a very solid, earthy hummus made from lotus, jackfruit and coriander with baguette. I even got a to-die-for-chocolate cake with passionfruit syrup as dessert.

With plenty of time left in the day, we were thinking of hitting one of the museums around. Unfortunately, the Landmine Museum was a bit too far out to be reached in time, so we settled on the much more expensive Angkor National Museum.

The experience was good, all in all a very modern museum experience – something I would expect and enjoy back home as well. Then again, around here it felt a bit out of place at times. Why do I pay $3 for a fancy audio guide when you could train and employ scores of Cambodians as personal guides for the same price? Instead, technology is used to funnel funds past the locals right into the foreign investors’ pockets. Be that as it may, the only criticism about the exhibition was that it may be focused a bit too much on the religious aspects of Angkor and the Khmer at the cost of some broader historic context. What about agricultural base? What about the systems of slave labour? Still, we left two hours later with a huge info-dump that would help us interpret what we will see in the temples tomorrow and the day after. No photos by the way, since even if we would have payed $2 extra camera fee, pretty much all the relevant exhibits had a no photography sign next to them …

Then, it was time for an early night – we had decided to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat tomorrow morning. The alarm was set for 5 am …