Cambodia part 3 - Siem Reap and Kratie

We had 5 days in Siem Reap and had 3 very long days of temple seeing and 2 days off to rest. We visited around 20 temples, some close by and some hours away. It was hard going in the heat but it was a very rewarding experience.

As you can imagine we took 100's of photos but here are a selection from our favourite temples:

Ankgor Wat, we visited this temple 3 times, including at sunrise and at sunset. It is massive and has some amazing bas-reliefs:




One of our favourite temples was Ta Prohm, which we visited first thing in the morning to beat the crowds. It's a real Indiana Jones experience!


The temple below is Bayon in Angkor Thom. There are hundreds of carved heads and beautiful bas-reliefs and it's one of the most amazing temples:



We had a great trip out on our tuk tuk through lovely countryside and friendly villages to see Kbal Spean, also known as the River of a Thousand Lingas. A Linga is the Hindu symbol for the penis.

We walked up a hill for about an hour and a guide showed us all the amazing carvings in the river bed. It was one of the highlights of our trip:



The temple with the most incredible carvings is Banteay Srei; it's very beautiful and looks like a fairy tale house:




Here's our lovely tuk tuk driver, Kim. He looked after us for 3 days and was always ready with a smile and a cold drink:



After leaving Siem Reap we headed to Kratie, which is the best place to see the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins. We went on a boat trip and saw quite a few but they are very difficult to photograph. This photo is not very good but it shows that we saw them!


We then left Cambodia and entered Laos from the south. The mini bus that we got had 16 people in it and there were 2 people sat in the driver's seat. Brilliant!!!