As Jives was trying to sleep and feel a bit more human, I ventured out to find food to eat on my own. I found a vegetarian place to eat nearby after about a fifteen minute walk. It felt weird to be going alone, but I had travelled a lot on my own in the past, I just prefer having a friend with me, not sick in bed all by himself. Poor guy. The place was called “Banlle Vegetarian Restaurant”. I walked in and the lady asked me “how many people?” when I said “one” she looked disappointed. She led me to a table and took the second place setting away. I ordered a stuffed tofu salad and a “traditional” Khmer curry with rice, as well as an Angkor Beer. It’s awkward eating alone, what do you stare at as you wait for your food?

https://youtu.be/AXPrA_PKSc8 Here is a video I made of my solo day travelling in Siem Reap Angkor Wat, Cambodia!

A frog hopped up to the table and joined me, and I thought.. here is my table buddy, but soon after his froggie date joined him, rude! The salad was really good, it was almost buttery and had seeds in it and the crispy stuffed tofu! My main dish was curry and that was ok, but not great. The curry was so sweet and full of lemon grass, basil and the herb that tastes like licorice… all of which you cannot eat… it was weird. I had as much as I could and washed it all down with the Angkor beer. When I asked to pay, the lady seemed confused as to why I hadn’t eaten my curry… I felt bad ( I never waste food!!). In total the meal was $10.50 which included a 10% gratuity. 

I hurried back to the room to make sure Jives was still alive. It was past sunset and the roads are like in Vietnam where you walk out into traffic and hope not to get hit. It all felt very weird to be doing alone. On my return to the room Jives seemed even worse. I had no idea how to help him. I felt so bad that he was so sick on his vacation, in the location he was looking forward to the most. I watched some youtube videos and fell asleep around 7:30pm.

I woke up just before 6 am, having had so much sleep. Jives was still pretty unconscious. I made a few coffees and surprisingly Jives wanted one. We went down to breakfast at 7:45, you could tell this was really hard for Jives. I ordered the rice porridge again and Jives got the egg breakfast with an omelette. He struggled to eat, but eventually got most of it down. We retreated back to our room, where Jives went straight back to sleep. I wrote in my book and drank coffee until about 9:45 when I went downstairs to meet my tuktuk driver. I made sure Jives had the painkillers, lozenges and lots of water handy, as well as the Ac remote. 

Mr.Kim, the lovely driver, seemed confused that Jives wasn’t there. He had prepared a cooler with lots of cold water for Jives, and seemed sad that he couldn’t show Jives. I apologized and asked if it was okay if the tour was just for me, and he said yes. 

Our first stop was the North Gate of Angkor Wat, it was covered in moss and had a tree growing out of it. This was definitely the coolest gate yet. Mr.Kim asked if I wanted a photo taken with the gate and then proceeded to take quite a few photos of me! 

Next we drove to the former university, Preah Khan. The king had built this university for his wife and mother. Apparently his wife was very smart, and he had lost his wife in the war, so after the war he married her older sister. The university was very interesting and a lot like Ta Prohm, but less touristy. There was a lot of carving on every surface, showing pretty well what it would have looked like nine hundred years ago. The centre of the university was a stupa and then branched out in four directions from the centre like a cross. It was huge!! There was quite a bit of rubble, kind of like how Ta Prohm was when I visited in 2011. 

Next we headed to Neak Poan Temple, which used to be a hospital. Along the drive there I saw many pools full of lotus flowers, swamps full of tall grasses and cows and dogs walking along the side of the road. Honestly, the journey in the tuk tuk is the main highlight! Neak Poan Temple is situated in the middle of a lake and cross over to it over a long bridge lined on either side with lotuses and petrified trees sticking up out of the water. The temple itself is mostly made up of natural elements. After crossing the water you walk through the jungle and end up at a temple. Because it was just after the rainy season, most of the temple was under water. The temple is shaped like a cross. Each of the four gates leading to the centre have a statue; human, horse, lion and bull. It was believed that bathing here would balance the elements in the bather and cure them. Each pool is also associated with an element. After walking back across the bridge from the lake we headed to the next stop. 

Ta Som was a very long temple with little court yards along the way. My favourite part of this temple was the furthest point, right before the temple dissolves into the jungle, you walk through a final gate.. Once you emerge from the tunnel the opening is completely enveloped by a giant tree. The tree top had been chopped down, but the roots had long ago intertwined themselves with the bricks of the gateway. There are huge roots inside the tunnel too! From the outside the gate way looked more like a tree house, or a fantastical woodland creature’s dream house. 

After Ta Som we headed to two pretty similar looking Hindu temples, each built long before Angkor Wat by King number two, 1100-1200 years ago. The first temple was called East Mebon temple. “Me” means man “bon” means women , so the temple is for the continuation of life and dedicated to Vishnu the Hindu god of creation. This temple had four levels that stepped up to one another. One layer had elephant sculptures on each corner. The top most layer I could go to had  elaborate carving on the super ornate doorways. In the middle there was a tower leading to the last layer, but I don’t think foreigners were allowed up there and I certainly didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. 

I believe the last temple was called Pre Rup. Pre Rup was also built by King number two and is a Hindu temple, which I feel you can tell by the shape (but I have seen A LOT of temples in my time). It was also very old and built before Angkor Wat. The layout was similar to Mebon, but instead of walking around the steps (layers) of the temple, you could go directly to the top via a very steep set of stairs. The view from the top was very much worth the climb. You could look down to the lower layers of the temple (over a dope-stone-lion’s shoulder) and see far into the jungle. It was a beautiful last temple to explore. I tried to take some timer photos of myself… I think a few turned out alright. I was missing my camera man a lot, poor Jives sick in bed at the hotel. 

The tour cost $18 USD and Mr.Kim dropped me off back at the hotel around 12:45. Jives was sitting up in bed, but not doing great.