Sophistivacation

Our clay pool villa was lovely; we had a huge bathroom and bedroom which were separated by a foyer. There was a balcony and a little private pool to the side of the villa. It sounds absolutely luxurious, but actually the sun only hit the balcony in the afternoon and the pool separately first thing in the morning, which was a bit annoying.  We ended up going to the pool as it had the sun all day and a happy hour between 2pm and 5pm. The hotel was pretty expensive, £10 for a small glass of wine and around the same for a cocktail; the food was equally expensive but there was a free shuttle to Kamala Beach so we ate there most nights. We also spent a couple of days on the beach as it was so easy to rent a sun lounger and towel plus the sea was roasting.. As we were a honeymoon couple, we did get a free meal at the hotel, drinks not included of course. It was beautiful but no better than some of the restaurants we tried down by the beach.  I trolled through tripadvisor as I was det...

Today we leave for the relaxing part of our holiday; to Phuket in Thailand and to a beautiful 5 star resort. We were not flying until after 1pm so obviously, we had time to fit in another temple! It was 8am, we had checked out of our hotel and were on our way to the ancient city of Angkor Thom. According to the guide, this is the second most popular temple in Cambodia; the first being Angkor Wat and the third being Ta Prohm or the tomb raider temple. Angkor Thom actually translates as “big city” with the temple taking up one part of the complex; it was also thought to be home to almost 1 million people.  It was only a 15 minute drive and the haze was starting to disappear; we arrived at the what was the last capital of the Khmer empire. We stopped at the gates of the city walls to walk across the bridge with the 108 statues, 54 good on one side  and 54 evil on the other, each side holding the sacred Naga snake. The gate had a tower with 4 faces depicting the four states of min...

Whoever thought that was a good idea, especially with the heat and humidity here? Well we did it! Tea picked us up at 8.30am, we drove around an hour to a mountain, which we then had to climb; it was a 3km round trip up a rocky and, at some points, steep hill. At the top of the Kulen Hills is an Angkorian era archeological site. There are Lingas (representations of Hindu god Shiva) and sculptures of Hindu gods and a waterfall, although it is dry season so there was no water there. The site consists of lots of carvings along the river bed and banks so is commonly known as the “River of 1000 Lingas.” Many Indian tourists come to visit here as it was said if water flows over the Lingas, the water is considered holy; the king and locals would bathe in the waterfall because of this. It was absolutely knackering and the sweat was dripping off us; I even managed to fall and now have a massive bruise down one shin. It was worth the effort though as it`s quite bizarre and nothing we have ever s...

Today is the start of our temple adventure; Tea, our new guide, called us yesterday to confirm an 8.30am start. We had breakfast in the hotel, another room service-esque type offering. It was good but I’m not sure it stands up to the best hotel in the world... Our guide mentioned that he was changing our tour around a bit (for our benefit!) so instead we would be driving 70km to a temple called Beng Mealea; this is a temple from around the 12th century and has not been restored att all. It has a kind of romance to it, with the trees growing anywhere and everywhere. As it is out of the way, there are also far fewer visitors to the temple.  On the way to our first stop, we had to pop in to buy our tickets for all the main temples; you can get a 1, 3 or 7 day pass which allows you to visit the temples on the list. The ticket also has your picture on it as they are quite stringent in their checks. We were told in advance to buy a hat so did so at the same time; Iain went for a Stetson,...