Today was our first full day abroad and to start it off, we woke up early to eat breakfast in the hotel. Once we finally got out of Hotel Sokharoth, we set off to see the Angkor temples. Our tour guides were called Hung and Heng and were very funny as well as extremely informative. The first of the temples was called Bayon and had a bridge which was lined with heads of Buddhas and demons. Although we didn’t see any up close, during the bus ride down the driveway we saw a few monkeys. We were told to stay away however as they can be quite vicious and to be perfectly honest we didn’t want to get scratched on our first day. The temple had many faces, each one representing a former king. We were able to wander around in small groups for an hour before getting back on the bus for our next temple. Just before leaving the boys played some soccer whilst the girls relaxed in the shade where a frog came up to join us.
The next temple was the one shown in the movie Tomb Raider and it was called Ta Prohm. This temple was being broken up by huge trees which will eventually destroy the temples altogether. We ate lunch after, at a village restaurant where we were offered to taste some fried silkworms. Brave Daniel went first shortly followed by a few other boys and girls. We then made our way over to the famous Angkor Wat temple which is one of the top 10 wonders of the world. We walked over a bridge crossing a lake where we could see the reflection of the Angkor Wat temples. Whilst in the huge central Angkor Wat temple we saw a group of monks celebrating Buddah Day at the temple. During their conversation, they all pulled out their iPhones to take photos. We came back to the hotel, where we’re having a swim and are about to go to Pub Street for dinner and to the Siem Reap night market. The day’s been hot, humid and long but we’ve all had a great time and are super excited for the rest of the night.
Blog by Sam May, Bridie Niven and Amy Galston
