Angkor Wat, Bangkok and Tiger Temple

Our journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap was slightly faster than anticipated thanks to a very fast driver and at the expense of a couple of local motorbike drivers who were edged into a ditch at the side of the road! The main reason for visiting Siem Reap is that it is located very close to the temples at Angkor Wat. We woke up early on our first day to get a good morning of sightseeing the temples in before heading over to a nearby butterfly farm and then looking at a couple more temples in the afternoon. The temples at Angkor Wat were amazing, especially when you consider how intricate the detailing is considering the huge size. Our tour of the butterfly farm was very interesting although we were somewhat underwhelmed by the amount of butterflys in the enclosure. Our afternoon was spent exploring the ruins of Wat Prohm, where huge trees have grown and some of the footage from the Lara Croft film was filmed.

Angkor Wat 

 

After a full day of walking round all the temples we were more than happy to spend our last day in Siem Reap by the hostel pool before heading into town for the night market. This was interesting to look round and I ended up buying a couple of paintings that we found. to finish of the evening we treated ourselves to a foot massage in town, with Poppy getting a pedicure as well.

Heading back to Bangkok we had timed it so as to make the weekend market which is the largest in the world. This was very difficult to navigate and sold everything from food to clothes and puppies to the kitchen sink. Staying over in a different area of Bankok to when we were first there we also had a look round some of the huge shopping malls that were nearby and found them equally as difficult to find our way around! On our last day before heading down to the Thai islands we decided to book onto a tour to go to the Tiger Temple in Kanchanburi. This is somewhat controversial as many people think that the tigers are only so relaxed and tame as they are drugged however we were reassured that this was not the case and that they tend to sleep for long periods of the day when it is hottest anyway. The morning in Kanchanburi was spend looking round a couple of other sights as well as a visit to a nearby waterfall. After lunch we were taken to the temple and got in line to go into the tiger enclosure for some pictures with the tigers. All in all it was a good experience and not something I can think that many people would have done. I would love to think that the tigers aren't drugged and are in fact just sleepy in the afternoon but it is difficult to tell as some of them did seem quite alert and awake.