the rest of Day 1

by D
It takes absolutely ages to get out of the airport. But that doesn’t change our mood. Coz yay – we’re traveling!

The tuk tuk sent by our guest house (free of charge) is waiting for us outside. The driver introduces himself. His name is Map. That’s right – Map. In retrospect, the tuk tuk was a great way to travel through Siem Reap. Maybe not too ideal in the rainy season. But perfect otherwise. It is far cheaper than a car and you have the wind in your face all the time. You can look all around you and everyone gets a good window seat! The ride to the guesthouse took us through dusty, dry land… but the breeze was cool so we couldn’t complain. Our eyes squinting in the sun were taking it all in. A lot of it reminded me of India. Mainly the dust!

We get to guest house. Say hello to Michael Gutmeyer (the manager). Unpack our luggage. (will tell you some other time how manic I am about unpacking – even if it is for a couple of hours at a place!!!!) and then we decide to catch a snooze before heading out. The snooze is about two hours long and we wake up just before noon! All woozy and hungry we decide to head out immediately for something interesting to eat.

Which is what we did. Eat something interesting I mean. I will leave it at that. This is too public a forum to discuss details.

The sun was bright and happy and shiny by then and it was way too hot for us to do anything so so walked back to the guesthouse. Which by the way , was just 5 minutes away from “bar street” the place to eat, drink and hang out…

We woke up a bit more refreshed and left at 4.30 to buy our 3 day pass for Angkor and also catch a bonus sunset, as our 3 days were going to start only the next day but we could be allowed in to the complex to see the temples if we wanted.

Our pass was bought and a temple was chosen for the sunset. The trek up was long and tiring. I think the sun set was pretty. Pics say the rest.

The sun set and we trekked back down with the rest of the crowd. Got back to the guesthouse (I seem to be saying that a lot don’t I?) got cleaned up and then we were out for dinner. The plan was to wake up really early the next day so we weren’t too keen to stay up too late. So we crashed and put two alarms in two separate devices to make sure we wake up on time. At 3.30am. And leave on time. At 4.30am. We do wake up on time. In fact, we are so enthusiastic (read “insane”) that we wake up 3 / 4 times through the night to look at the time. In fact I remember A shaking me rather hard at one point and mumbling “wake up D. wake up. You get ready first.” I stumble out of bed and realize its 12 &%*$ing 30.

Oh well. That was day 1.