Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples are The Main Event in Cambodia – the country's Cash Cow - if you didn't know that before you arrive in town, you realise soon after. On the bus ride we saw more big hotels than we'd seen in the whole of Cambodia thus far, and the centre of Siem Reap is packed with tourist-friendly restaurants and bars.

We stayed close to the centre at 'Hotel 89' - easily one of the best hotels we've stayed at thus far [thanks again to Emily]. The level of service was unreal: They fixed us up with breakfast each morning, helped us get a tuk tuk driver to take us round the temples, found us a local gym we could go to, organised a massage for Sarah after a hard day of touring, booked our bus tickets on to Battambang and even gifted us two cotton scarves as we left. The icing on the cake came after our first day looking round the temples though - we disembarked from our tuk tuk at dusk, hot, tired and covered in dust, and were welcomed back by a shiny bellboy waiting at the hotel entrance with a silver tray bearing two damp hand-towels and ice cold water. Not bad for $18 a night!

Angkor was top of my list of things to see in Cambodia, primarily as it gave me an opportunity to pretend to be Indiana Jones. I didn't have the hat or whip but I did manage a modest bit of adventuring – climbing up onto the roof of one of the ruined temples and running around until Sarah spotted me and told me to get down. Whilst Angkor Wat is obviously the most famous temple, there are actually around 40 temple complexes in the area outside Siem Reap, created by the Khmer empire over a period of a couple of hundred years by successive rulers as they roamed the area. The buildings they left behind are a mix of temples, tombs, shrines to their parents, entire state capitals, and even ceremonial hydraulic works. A lot to see!

You can visit the temples by bus, or even by bike, but the best way is to hire a tuk tuk for a couple of days as some of the temples 30-odd km away from Siem Reap. We had a really nice driver called Chandy (who Sarah kept on referring to as 'Chun Li' – obviously she's never played Street Fighter). He had just re-enrolled in college so whilst we explored each temple, he sat waiting in his tuk tuk revising English Literature in the 30 degree heat.

Outside of each temple is a forest of stalls selling food and drinks from ice boxes, postcards and beads - most manned by very persistent small children. As they see you pulling up they all sprint from their stalls to mob you, and don't let up till you enter the temple or leave on your tuk tuk. They've all learned the same stock phrases, so in the few metres from tuk tuk to temple you have the same conversation over and over...
'Hey Lady! You wan' cold water? Coca cola? One dollar OK? One dollar. Cheap price'
'No thank you. I've got some water already'
'Maybe you wan' more. Very hot today.'
'No thanks, I'm ok'
'OK maybe later'
'No thanks'
'You think about it. See temple, come back, maybe change your mind.'
'Maybe'
'OK later, you wan' water you buy from me OK?'
...and then on leaving the temple...
'Hey Lady, you say “Maybe”! One water one dollar'

We went through this routine at every one of the 17 temples we visited.

In trying to decide which were our favourite temples we developed a series of evaluation criteria. The ones we enjoyed most were;
1.partially overgrown
2.partially ruined
3.labyrinthine
4.intricately decorated
5.NOT covered in scaffolding

So whilst our visit to Angkor Wat at sunrise was a real highlight, we actually prefered Bayon in the Angkor Thom complex with its complicated structure of enclosures and carved faces, and Preah Khan's tumble-down stones dissolving into the forest...