Cambodia is a third world country and I had no expectation of this land being anything super interesting. They speak Khmer language and predominantly buddhist. They certainly believe in Karma and do live in really poor conditions. US $ is pretty much their main currency as it's given as a change back when you buy something. With their mind-blowing amount of temples and history Siem Reap has been a pleasant change for us.
My favorite moment was being picked up from the airport with Tuk Tuk (the 3 wheeler motorcycles with a small seating area) and seeing the people of Cambodia on the streets. They don't necessarily believe in traffic lights so they didn't even bother putting them up. I think I only saw one traffic light the entire time. Tuk Tuks are the way to go everywhere and they are $1 each way. Everything is super cheap for the Western world but it didn't stop us from negotiating as we bought many items for 1/3 of the asking price.
Golden Temple Hotel, our cool little boutique hotel near downtown, was spectacular. The amount of service we received from them all 4 days was overwhelming. I don't think I even mention to this hotel about honeymoon in the beginning. They had a nice size pool with Angkor style waterfall, colorful rooms full of little geckos running across the wall everywhere.They have provided laundry service and we washed our clothes for less than $5, with the express delivery by the way. They provided full hour massage, airport pickup/drop off, constant welcome drinks and fruits, and free Khmer BBQ dinner! This was the best value we got for a really cheap room. Later on I found out that the owner of the hotel is pretty much a big time investor and owns, hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and clubs around Siem Reap. Pretty much a Cambodian Tycoon!
The main reason everyone comes to Siem Reap is to see the Khmer Temples from 11th century or even earlier. Angkor Wat being the main temple that served Khmer Kingdom for many years is a breathtaking venue that sits by itself in the very beginning of the 'Park'. We took 3 day pass to around most of the temples with our lovely Tuk Tuk driver Bros. Mr. Bros didn't speak much English but he had the best smile in the world that made me think about Cambodian people as very content, happy people. Maybe he was only making $15/day (that's how much we paid him for driving us around for 7 hours) but he wasn't worried about how much money he was going to make and invest into something else. He was living the moment and I know that the Buddhist philosophy encourages that all the way. It was good to be in the moment for these days in Cambodia and for once not worrying about what's coming ahead.
Coming back to the temples we have seen at least 10-12 different temples and it is amazing that they are all different. Angkor Thom was a massive park within the Park, where the Khmers resided for many centuries after Angkor Wat. I have seen temples that are used as a university with a library monument that reminded me of the 'Library' at the Ephesus in Turkey. All the temples were graceful and some of them were magically wrapped around the trees. Trees that are hundreds of years old were hugging these massive temples. It was super cool to see those. Almost every temple had a Buddha in it where people left inscents and prayed. We were in awe walking around these temples and stopped taking pictures and tried to envision what it would like to be living there a millennium ago. It is all up to the imagination…
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| Angkor Wat |
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| Coolest Spot |
I'll talk about the night life a little bit as well. Downtown is pretty small actually with bunch of street vendors trying to sell you the same item that I saw earlier at the temples. The Pub Street is the main attraction around and our first night we were drenched in the pouring rain as we were walking to grab a dinner. We ended up in local food joint, Khmer Kitchen that had pretty basic local food. Their food is very similar to Thai food and also the cultures are pretty similar to it (more to come on that). The next evening we have visited two places that were #1 and #2 on Trip Advisor in Siem Reap. For dinner, we have visited Haven a swiss-owned restaurant that trained orphan kids to work at a restaurant business and provided housing and money to them. All of our servers were trained from the Haven Academy and they were super nice and educated about the food. The food was delicious where you can select between local cuisine and unique European food. The overall experience and zen-like atmosphere was quite fitting. After Haven we headed to a hookah place that was quite popular with the locals. The owner is a young French-Canadian guy from Montreal and somehow ended up in Cambodia couple years back and stayed here. His hookah was pretty good and we had a nice little chat about Cambodian lifestyle, people and his experience here. He knew quite a bit from meeting locals and he even learned to speak the Khmer language. Great times smoking a vodka-loaded kiwi flavored hookah and drinking tea.
And next we are heading to Philippines Paradise island... wait a second that was the plan but we can't go there. Super Storm Haiyan hit Philippines on Friday morning all the flights and island access has been shut down. East side of the country is hit horribly and there were thousands of dead people. We were supposed to leave Siem Reap on Sunday night to Manila but had to cancel everything. Vietnam was the next target of Haiyan so couldn't go there as people were evacuating their homes. Thailand was glimpsing at us... we initially wanted to avoid Thailand since we heard it was very touristy and high season start in November. At this point we were happy to dodge the bullet with getting stranded at Philippines and would head anywhere. Ended up deciding to go to Krabi, which is 2 hour boat ride from famous Phuket area. Ended up staying at Golden Temple Hotel one more night and had a little excursing to a cool waterfall that was 40km away from the city. Nice hike to the top of the hill to see the waterfall. We were living my tattoo (Spontanieta) all the way... Strangely felt good for not knowing where we are heading next... Off to Krabi through Bangkok layover!
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| Waterfall site |
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| Ellen's new BFF |
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