We got up at 4.30am and would have been ready to leave by 5am if Helen hadn’t contracted a pretty bad tummy bug over-night, hmmm we weren’t sure if she’d get through the day so in went the Imodium and a re-hydration sachet and we hoped that it wouldn’t spoil things too much. Deciding to take it a little more leisurely than the night before we arrived at Angkor Wat at 5.45am and made our way into the temple site. It was already rammed with tourists all lined up along the front walls, smaller shrines and the lake at the front of the Wat. There must have been at least a thousand people there already, we hung around there for a bit and then decided to go into the temple itself and took in the warmth of the light on the buildings as the sun came up. There weren’t many people inside the grounds of the temple so it was very peaceful and away from the mass of tourists at the front. We walked around the grounds for about an hour and then went back to the front to find that most people had left and were missing the beautiful sight of the sun starting to peep over the huge pagodas in the middle, very strange!

After a croissant or two (for Dave) we rode the 13km journey back to Ta Prohm, this time we were able to get into the temple site. There were quite a few tour groups there but didn’t seem too busy when we walked around the site. This is the one you’ll see in all the photos…the one with the tree routes entangled around the old temple ruins. WOW! It really is an amazing site, they are leaving it to allow the trees and nature make their impressive marks, although there is some construction work going on. We managed to avouch the tour groups by going off in other directions. We ended up spending over an hour at this site and loved it.

Moving on from Ta Prohm we cycled along the route to Ta Keo this time climbing up the steep steps on the side of the temple up towards a tower that takes you 50 metes in height. There are wonderful views from the top and we managed to find ourselves a spot in the shade on the side of one of the towers where we people watched.

Following the route along we cycled through The Victory Gate and parked up at the north-east side of the central area of Angkor Thom taking in the Terrace of Elephants, The Terrace of the Leper King and Phimeanakas. All impressive and in the heat of the midday sun again seemingly missing the tour groups and main bulk of visitors. Following on from this we cycled only a little further to Bayon where we spent around an hour taking in the 216 enormous grinning faces built by the King of the God Kings; Jayavarman VII around the 13th century. It’s hard to imagine these enormous temples being built and the amount of effort t must have taken, each bettering the other it seems impossible that man was able to create these temples one after the other.

Our last stop on the route back to Angkor Wat was Phnom Bakheng and took less than 5 minutes from Bayon. There is a path up a small hill to this temple but as it is the highest temple on the site when we reached the top we were rewarded with fine views across the forests over other temple sites and Angkor Wat was creeping above the tree tops. This would be an ideal place to see the sunrise or set over the area as there are good views from both sides, the only downside being that nearly all tour groups will head there at around 4.30pm to get a good spot for the sunset. It’s not a huge temple either so we imagine it would be very cramped and difficult to get a good spot, so we left at just after 4pm and already the buses were starting to park up and the food stalls were waiting in anticipation.

On our way back we stopped off at Angkor Wat one last time and pestered some tourists into taking some photos of ourselves as all day either one of us was photographing the other and we had none together. We stayed for a short while and then decided to head back to Siem Reap, it had been a long day and we’d managed much more than we thought we would have been able to, Helen was also ready for some rest.

Back in Siem Reap we once again ventured to the Blue Pumpkin to stock up on breakfast, ate out with Doug and Emma and then walked around the very contrived, tourist night market before going back to get ready for the next off. We did enjoy Siem Reap with our main reason being that Angkor Wat is a very impressive and amazing site to visit, Siem Reap itself though very much felt like a Greek holiday Island resort. The market was almost too clean, the night-market appeared to be made from some kind of film set and most restaurants charge a lot for the pleasure. We were happy to be moving on.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After the loveliness that was Dave’s birthday day we got up early, packed our bags and took advantage of our late check out time but going to one of Japan’s most famous and most beautiful gardens; the Kenrokuen Gardens. The light was quite flat so we weren’t able to capture the gardens as we would have liked, but there were good views and the gardens were kept in pristine condition so it was all worth while doing. They were making some wooden scaffolding to protect the trees as a typhoon was on it’s way. It seemed pretty calm considering the typhoon was due to hit Japan today!!

With the Kenrokuen gardens ticked off our list we went back to Namaste, checked out and said our goodbyes before setting off to the train station to pick up our next part of the travel. Kyoto was our next destination and we had changed our itinerary a little so we could stay for 3 nights as opposed to two. We were planning on staying in Nara, however we changed our minds due to the accommodation that we had booked was nearly 3 times more than Kyoto and it seemed like another place where you are surrounded by bus loads of tourists, every day you’re there. We may decide to do this as a day trip from Kyoto, but it felt good to be flexible on this.

So at around 3pm we arrived in Kyoto at their amazingly large station right opposite the Kyoto tower. Having got our bearings (it often takes us a while on the ‘You are here!” maps) we walked to K’s guest house, something like a 10-15 minute walk from the station. We knew we were on the right track though when we came across other backpackers and westerners making their way to the same place.

We checked into our little room, bigger than the Sakura Hotel in Tokyo, but a little prison like with bunk beds and a small desk with enough floor space that Helen thought she could do some yoga in there! The rooms are tightly packed in here though with metal doors and there wasn’t much of a feel for personality on our floor. In the communal areas the space is much more welcoming with sofas, a kitchen, books, music, an outdoor seating area and so on. We soon bumped into Mel and Cane who we had met at Namaste in Kanazawa as we were about to explore the streets by bikes. This was so much fun exploring backstreets and the river paths nearby our hostel. You can go some distance and we managed a spot of filming from the bikes which extended our creative processes somewhat. At waist level, sometimes from the handlebar view-point we rode past joggers, lovers, beggars, cats, people chatting on the riverside, skaters and other cyclists. Once the sun had set we made our way back through the busy down town area and eventually found K’s again!

For dinner we went to a Japanese restaurant just over the bridge from the hostel and Helen had some of the best udon noodles to date whilst Dave enjoyed another traditional style cooked Japanese set dinner. Very good. There’s a great bar at the hostel that attracts backpackers and other westerners from around the area so we sat in there for a drink, people watched and then went back to our little cell, we were getting a good feel for the place already.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)