We headed back to the hotel for 11, checked out of the hotel, and the taxi was waiting for us. The journey to Siem Reap was uneventful -- by the grace of God. The driver drove like a lunatic and overtook everything in sight. I was feeling very sick and tried to sleep but didn't really manage it. We got there eventually though and checked into the City River hotel. It all went fairly smoothly except for the fact that Matt had very cleverly thrown away his Cambodian visa. Luckily they accepted a copy which he had printed before he left home, and they didn't seem to notice that this one hadn't been stamped at the airport. It also annoyed me that even though the booking was in my name and paid for with my credit card, they insisted that Matt signed for it.
We booked a tuk tuk to take us straight to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset.
There are three day tickets to see the temples but if you buy one after 5pm you can watch the sunset for free on the first evening. So we caught our first glimpse of Angkor Wat across the lake. It was chaos around the main temple, with tuk tuks, buses and taxis everywhere -- I think the Chinese New Year drew extra tourists. On the tuk tuk driver's recommendation, we walked up to Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunset. Unfortunately it was way too packed to be worth the trek and it was really hard to get a good view of the sun setting. I hope the next few days aren't going to be that packed!After the sunset we found our tuk tuk (not as easy as it sounds, there are hundreds of them) and made our way back to the hotel. We went out for dinner in the Khmer Kitchen, a restaurant highly recommended in the Lonely Planet -- and rightly so. I had a fantastic traditional Khmer curry with chicken and potatoes.....Mmmm. Then it was back to the hotel for an early night....we're being picked up by a tuk tuk at 5 in the morning to go and watch the sunrise. We must be mad!
