First of all, Siem Reap has a new airport.
When we booked our flights months ago, the plan was to fly into REP airport which was 5 minutes out of town. Between then and our actual flight, they shut down REP airport and diverted all the flights to SAI which is a new airport about an hour out of town. Strangely, Cambodia Angkor Air alerted us to the change, but Thai Air Asia (who we booked our out bound flight with) did not. So up until we arrived, we thought we were flying into one airport and out of another! We obviously figured this out, and the only inconvenience was that it cost us $60 round trip to and from the new airport. Weird that Thai Air Asia never gave us a heads up.
The new airport is apparently owned by the Chinese which we found strange.
We stayed at a great homestay we found through AirBnb that was about $23 a night.
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| View of the family compound at our homestay taken from our balcony. |
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| Their overhead fan appeared to be a disassembled floor fan hung from the ceiling. We saw this everywhere. |
The host set everything up for us which was really convenient. His mom (Mamma) made us delicious food and did our laundry.
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| Mamma’s kitchen |
The room was huge, had AC, and the whole experience was way more than we could have hoped for!
We had our own dedicated tuktuk driver for two days which cost about $17 a day. Could you piecemeal together tuktuk rides for cheaper? Probably, but it wouldn’t have been too much of a difference, and we didnt have to haggle. He also had ice cold water for us after each stop! Totally worth it!
We came to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat. We had no idea what we were in for. Angkor Wat is only one of many temples that Siem Reap Province is known for. To see them all takes a few days. A one day ticket costs $37 for a single day ticket and $62 for a three day ticket. You can also get a week long ticket but three days should be enough unless you’re super hardcore about seeing temples. It does get hot though during the peak season (and probably rains a lit in the off season,) so if you have a lot of time it might be good to get the week pass and visit at your leisure in the early evenings or late afternoon. While we wore our slippers (flipflops) for the majority of our trip, we wore good sturdy closed toed shoes for the temples. We’re glad we did because some of the terrain can be uneven and the stairs steep.
We got up super early to see Angkor Wat on day 2 even though we had already been there the day before. The goal was to see the sun rise behind the main temple. It was incredible. However, this is one of the most popular things to do so we were amongst 300 or so other people who didn’t seem to have much respect for the majesty of the moment (talking loudly,) and who evidently didn’t understand that you can’t brighten up a backlit subject with your camera flash. Other than that, it was amazing!
While Angkor Wat is the largest, it’s hardly the most impressive. Just north of Angor Wat was Angkor Thom where we saw the Bayon and Baphuon temples.
Outside of Baphuon, Margarite was accosted by an agressive monkey. He rushed her and only stopped when she chucked her water bottle at him in sef defense. Evidently, that was exactly what he was going for. We saw another monkey doing this to two women who were walking ahead of us on our way out. Helmut scared him off and saved the day. These monkeys were crazy. Definitely hide your water bottles and anything else they could snatch from you if you visit this temple. It was the only temple where we had this problem.
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We saw a bunch of other temples that were all amazing in their own way. One of the others that stood out was Ta Prohm where all the trees had grown over the ruins. This one was our favorite and photos barely do it justice!
We also went far north to see Banteay Srei, AKA the lady temple.
It took awhile to get there and the temple interesting but the scenery on the way made it well worth it. It was interesting to see how the people in rural Cambodia live, and it was definitely different from the things we saw in the city.
In the evening, we took a tuktuk to the Riverside Night Market. It was hoppin! Such a vibrant scene and great shopping. The quality seemed better than the Russian Market in Phnom Penh.
After we were all-templed-out, we hit the Angkor National Museum. It was about $12 to get in and an extra $5 for the audio tour. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to visit this museum prior to going to the temples as it explained the history of the Kmher empire and also had a lot of information about the religious imagary that we saw earlier. It was very informative and well worth the money.
So far, Siem Reap has absolutely been the highlight of our trip. Such an amazing place and we easily could have spent a few more days wandering around.
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| Fried Crickets and Fried Chicken feet |
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| Recreational badminton |