Siem Reap

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Hi all!!

Well we had a very comfortable trip from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap!! We booked the new coach service called Giant IBIS. It was a little more expensive than usual at 13 dollars pp for the 6 hour journey but it was well worth it. The bus was brand new, it had less seats so lots of extra leg room. It had wifi on board, a movie showing, and we also recieved a drink and a snack!!! It was AMAZING haha a very comfortable journey even with the poor roads!

The guys at the Mad Monkey in Phnom Penh have recently opened another mad monkey hostel in siem reap so we had booked ourselves in here and we were a little disappointed with it if we are to be honest. The food was not as good, the staff were not great and the rooms were not the best. It has potential and is only open 3 months so it might get better in the future.

During our stay in Siem Reap we got a 3 day pass to visit the Temples in Angkor Wat. We took one of the tuk tuk drivers from the hostel and he set off with us for the day. Our first stop was Angkor Wat and we decided that we should get a guide to show us around. The temple is magnificent to see and having the guide really helped us understand everything inside. We also got some cool photos of the resident monkeys and some of the babies too. We saw another 4 temples on the first day the most memorible being the temple featured in the film tomb raider. It was full of Japanese tourists queuing up to get there photo taken, all giving there peace sign as the photo is taken! Our day was cut short a tad when the heavens opened but we continued for a short while until we just felt miserible and decided to pick it back up the next day!

Again on our second day we had Mr Pat our tuk tuk driver to take us around the temples again. We were lucky with the weather as we didn't have any rain all day but it was very hot! throughout the day we got to see another 5 temples each one very different to the other. Some need a lot of work to be restored others they have had extensive work done to them. But all of which are spectaculiar to see.

On our last day Mr Pat took us to one of the temples an hours drive away. The Temple itself was small but the surrounding area has a museum coffee shops and restaurants. After seeing the temple and the museum and returning to our tuk tuk Mr Pat then decided to tell us that because we had driven so far out that we would have to pay him more money to see any other temples! for all of our days with him we had agreed a price as our hostel had told us to do and then he just decides to spring it on us when we are in the middle of nowhere that anything else will be extra. After discussing with Helen and Dan we decided we had see enough temples by now and decided we would not pay our driver anymore and just head back to see the landmine museum which we had passed on our way to the temple. We had an american guy show us around the museum. The museum was set up by a guy called Aki Ra. Aki Ra was a child soldier for the Khmer rouge and was involved in laying landmines in cambodia. Eventually turning against the khmer rouge army and fighting them for years he began slowly going to villages were people had been killed by the mines the khmer rouge had layed and from the uxo's the US had dropped. By hand using only a knife and a stick he started demining! He began collecting the mining cases he recovered selling some for scrap and keeping others in his home in Siem Reap. When people started hearing about him they wanted to see what he was collecting and so he decided to set up the museum to help fund his demining! Over the years he also started to take in children who had be affected by the mines and eventually he helped set up the cambodian landmine museum relief centre which now looks after and educates children affected by the mines. After the cambodian government closed down his museum in Siem Reap and moved it out of the city and also stopped him from performing his uncertified demining he set up cambodian selfhelp demining! The organisation now has a number of volunteer crew who are doing the very best to rid cambodia of UXO's. The museum relief centre now has 29 children in the centre getting high school education and some are even going on to 3rd level education. We really had a great couple of hours in the museum and our guide was great telling us everything about how Aki Ra and how he set up the organisation and also showing us the different types of mines and how they work. We all agreed it was one the best things we have done in cambodia and would recommend everyone to go and see it as it helps to rid cambodia of the 6 million mines that are still scattered across the country.

Also keep your eye out for a film which is being made about his life called a perfect soldier it should be excellent!!

On our last day we decided to take a trip to the nearby floating village, Mr.Pat our tuk tuk driver for d past few days drove us there. We were both really lookin forward to it as many people from the hostel had been and they recommended it to us. When we arrived we were met by a guide and he took us onto a small boat which we had all to ourselves. At first we found the guide very good. He was very informative and friendly and spoke very good english. It was amazing there was a floating shop, floating church, floating basketball court it was cool to see. The guide had told us earlier he would take us onto the floating school to meet the children and teachers but then out of nowhere he told us he would take us to the floating shop to buy something as it all goes back into the community. We thought he meant buy something small but we were wrong. As soon as we were in the shop he was asking for $60 for a bag of rice for the children he told us if we didn't buy something he wouldn't take us to the school. I was so mad at him, we had really enjoyed the tour and now he was ruining the experience trying to scam us. He could see how upset I was when I told him we would not be buying anything and stormed back onto the boat. He eventually did take us to the school anyway and they had everything they needed so all the rubbish about needing to buy rice was a complete scam. Then when we were getting off the boat Ian reluctantly gave him a small tip and he had the cheek to ask for more! I was fuming, I stormed off and he followed us right out to the car park asking were we ok. The floating village was really cool to see it was unfortunate that our guide ruined our day, we just got unlucky. We both really enjoyed Siem Reap and would love to return again in the future.

Laura & Ian xoxo

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