In Siem Reap with mad hair

Bloody hell, I'm in Cambodia! As the plane came in to land (an hour late) crusing over the fields and houses (and the sense that somewhere down there are amazing ancient temples) I finally found the excitement for this trip that was so lacking in the days leading up to it. I disembarked and walked across the tramac (I LOVE doing that!) and sailed through immigration. Props to me for getting my visa in Australia as the lines for the visa on arrival we pretty long. Found my driver and headed along Airport Road. Fields and shantys gave way to massive hotels and then the town proper. My first response it that it is very much like India - the dust, the smell and the small shops selling everything from phone cards to bike parts. ( This feeling has not changed a day later having explored further.) In the street outside my hotel (left: view from the balcony) a young woman on a bike with a platform attached was selling eggs and advertising her wares via a small, tinny tannoy attached to the handlebars. My hotel is more basic than I anticipated but perfectly fine. I showered away 15 hours of travel and hit the streets. Constantly declining tuk tuks and motos I headed into tourist central - Pub Street where I sat for a while with an Angkor beer and spring rolls. I will be more culinarily adventurous soon, I'm pacing myself! I was surprised Siem Reap is not what I thought it would be but guidebooks and maps can be deceiving. It would be quite a culture shock if I'd not been to India.

Today I started early and after breakfast wandered in the direction of the Angkor National Museum (which opens at 8.30am - imagine that my museum friends!). On the way I walked around the gardens in front of the Royal Residence which are lovely. It is at this end of the town that you see what is left of the grand city that existed before the destruction. The museum is quite new and well designed. I won't bore you with a review but a couple of highlights were the Gallery of 1000 Buddas and one small but amazing object a boundry marker with hundreds of images of Vishnu carved into all four sides. (Multimedia guys - there was an interesting use of a peppers ghost layed over a plasma screen (!) projecting khmer script and images over a documentary.) So, leaving the museum around 10am (!!!!) I went on one of my patented "lets just wander" walks. Well, I did have a destination but it was quite a walk. Turning towards the river from the museum I happened upon a bustling local market, the kind that isn't in the guidebook ( I went to that one - Old Market- and it is full of tourist tat from Thailand). Towards the end of my walk I stumbled across a temple complex (I think it was Wat Damnak) - it was beautiful and peaceful with pagodas, stupas and a central temple. Then a rest at a cafe with a fruit shake and to call mum and dad on my mobile now that I have bought a sim card. I'm really enjoying my time here so far - I will get to the Angkor temples soon enough, I like getting a sense of the place (as well as my bearings). Left: a random sight from my wanderings.

Oh, and the mad hair - well, between not having a power converter for the hairdryer and what humidity does to hair wax I'm looking, well, unkempt in the hair department.