So why did we come back to Siem Reap again? Two reasons, mainly to see more of the temples but also so yesterday I could only in the Angkor Wat half marathon.
Running this half marathon was one of those things that looked like a great idea at the time - it was on at the same time as when we are in Cambodia why not do it? As always I thought there was plenty of time to train for it, and as ever I let things interrupt those plans, so come race day I was definitely under prepared. As it was it didn't go to badly. It was the hottest and most humid half I've ever run and I can use that as a partial excuse for my slowest ever time (2 hours 12 minutes), but at least I made it around without stopping. Irrespective of the time it was a great event to run in, partly because of the beauty of the course as it winds it's way around the temple complexes, partly because of the enthusiastic locals who lined the course are (and especially the kids who " high fived" so much that my arm wasdo,s worn out as your legs by the end) and partly by the size of the field you run with. I hadn't realized that this was part of a circuit keen amateur runners do, and there were about 1500 people doing the half marathon and another 6500 doing a shorter 10k or 3k course - a good half or more of these runners being foreigners like me.
The run had started at just after six and we were back at the hotel by nine so in theory we had a whole day in front of us to use productively- instead I used post-run recovery as an excuse to been around all day drinking beer and watching movies - this is meant to be a holiday after all.
Today we did get back to doing the tourist thing, visiting some of the more outlying temples. Below is a picture of our transport for the day, and (hopefully) some video footage of the fun on the roads out here. As ever for me the traveling is at least as important as the destination.
The first temple we visited was the very tumble down Beng Melea - Megan first saw this complex ten years ago when it was very overgrown and so unvisited that for several hours she had it all to herself. Today it's somewhat different, whilst still relatively unvisited compared to the temples close to town it still had half a dozen large tourist buses at the entrance when we arrived. Fortunately it is large enough (just) to absorb the current crowd.
As you walk into the site a big sign says the standard things like "stick to set paths", " don't climb things" etc. We quickly discovered that because this not part of the main complex it is not actually very controlled and the local guide we hired (or more correctly attached herself to us) obviously hadn't read it and soon had us scrambling up rock piles and around ledges to see the interesting stuff. She also fortunately had a smattering of English;enough to explain all the important stuff but not so much that she bored you to tears with facts that you are going to instantly forget. As we followed her around it was obvious she had a limp but it didn't seem to hinder her to much and we didn't pay any attention to it. It was only at the end did she reveal she actually had an artificial leg having lost one to a mine explosion- an instant reminder of the countries bloody recent history. Below are a few shots from the site.
From Being Melea it was another two hours of rural travel to see "The river of a thousand linga's" (linga = penis, I kid you not). The Hindu religion is a bit fixated on these, Freud would probably had a field day. The location was very beautiful though.
And finally as we would or way home from a long day, Bantaey Srei, which whilst small has exquisite carving on its stonework.
It's only after you've been here a short while do realize what a variety there is in the Khymer temples and how the style developed over four or five hundred years of the empires peak. You also realize how priveliged you are too see it all within a short distance; it's the same as if all Europe's key cathedrals were within 50 miles of each other.
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