Cambodia- Beyond Siem Reap

On our third day after ditching our guide we hired a driver for the day and went to

Preah Kahn

Beng Mealea

Koh Ker

I would definitely recommend anyone going to

Siem Reap to take the time to

get out of the Angkor Wat complex and see some of the temples

further away

(it was about a 3 hour drive to koh ker, and 2 hours between each destination)

We loved the fact that here we had the temples

all to ourselves.

The atmosphere was completely different,

i felt more connected with the temples and nature

and it felt more historic and not like

tourist-mania.

Beng Mealea was by far Tim's favourite

the guides show where you can climb all over the ruins,

he felt just like Indiana Jones. 

(my pictures werent actually fuzzy,

i think my crappy internet connection has just 

uploaded them that way...

boo!)

Cambodia - Sunrise

On our 2nd day in Siem Reap Tim got me out of bed at 4.30am

to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

I am not a morning person and had previously told my husband

that i would not be bothered if i never saw a sunrise in my life.

Well, i was a good wife and got up and watched it.

And that i hope is enough sunrises to last our whole marriage.

He managed to get me to the sunrise by promising me an elephant ride.

Our original plans had been to spend some time at 

the Elephant Sanctuary.

You get to go and hang out and look after Elephants that had been misused by tourists.

Unfortunately due to the shortness of our trip

we werent able to get out to the jungle to go there,

so i had to settle with being one of the evil

tourists who rode elephants....

i guess in someways i was still contributing to 

keeping the Elephant Sanctuary in business.

We saw a bunch of other temples on our

2nd day which honestly now i dont have my Lonely Planet

i cant for the life of me remember the names off.

They were slightly quieter though which was a bonus!

Cambodia -Angkor Wat

Husband and i took over 700 pictures whilst in Cambodia.

I managed to skim it down to 150 for facebook,

skimming it down to next to nothing for here will be uber tough!

Our first two days in Siem Reap were spent with a tour guide 

who was recommended to us.

We ditched him for the 3rd day we were meant to have him,

it was a mutual dislike,

on the end of the 2nd day when we should have been making plans

for pick up the next day he drove away in his tuk tuk very fast.

He must have known we were going to whinge to him.

he kept wanting to do everything but see the temples,

which is of course why we came.

So on the 1st and 2nd day we saw the most famous temples.

For us it was a little bit too busy for our liking.

The buildings were awesome, 

but in some parts it felt like Disney Land

(especially with the tour groups of Korean tourists!)

You wouldnt believe it from our pictures but these places were busy!!!!!

To be honest Angkor Wat itself was not our favourite

temple. We kept asking our tour guide why it was the most famous.

He didnt know 

(he didnt know much)

I loved Bayon

with all the faces.

From a distance it almost looks like just rubble, 

but close up those smiling faces are amazing.

Ta Prohm was the one i was most excited about but to be honest 

it was too too busy, and it was also a giant building site,

scafolding and workers everywhere, it really detracted from the atmosphere.

If i were to do the Angkor Wat complex again i think i would 

do it by cycling rather than Tuk Tuk.

As we kept driving by all the cyclists i felt so jealous of them being able to

explore the forest and temples at their own pace.

Honeymooning....

 

 

Been off honeymooning in Cambodia.

 

I'll admit one of the highlights for me was

the secluded island we spent a couple of nights on

in a wooden shack on the beach.

 

Its the things honeymoons should be made off....

 

It's a Mermaids Life....

On our way up to the Sunshine Coast

to visit my relatives for xmas

we stopped over in Byron Bay.

Whilst there i saw a leaflet for swimming with turtles...

oh boy oh boy was i excited!!!!

I talked about it for days on end until my husband

realised that we were not going to make it back

to Sydney without a swim.

The Byron Bay Dive centre who we did the swim with

were great.

Even though of course they told us they couldnt guarantee turtle spotting

as they are wild animals, it was only seconds after

jumping off the boat that we spotted our turtles.

Tim wanted to swim around and explore the reef a bit,

but i would have been happy with just watching the turtles the whole hour!!!

All the pictures with me turned out pretty crappy,

mainly because of my lung i'm not meant to dive down.

In fact my diving career is over...

but we got some pretty cool shots of tim!

Pretty Ballet Pictures....

Although we werent able to get tickets

to the Sydney Opera House to see the ballet

they did have a nice exhibition outside the opera house

with pictures from a Vogue Photo shoot

some of the members of the company

had recently done.

You can see more

here

On the upside

our delay here has meant we have got tickets 

to see the Opera La Boheme this weekend

(expensive tickets)

So i'm going to get to go inside after all!!!!

Our delayed Honeymoon.....

Happy New Year!!!!!

This is an x-ray of two working lungs....

My Two Working Lungs to be exact!!!!

Woohooo!

Our original plan after being here in Oz was to 

spend three weeks travelling round Cambodia

for our belated Honeymoon.

Unfortunately my broken lung

meant we had to cancel our flights until i got the all clear to fly.

Thai Airlines suck by the way,

they gave us no compassionate consideration for my medical condition

and we had to spend a fortune on new flights

(with a different airline)

So now our time in Cambodia is

down to a week...

which i cant really complain about too much!