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Published: April 1st 2018
We arrived on the tarmac at Siem Reap airport just after dark on a warm, humid night much as we had 14 years before. It had been a quick flight from Hanoi. After 6 weeks in frozen China and a month in the pleasant temperatures of Vietnam, the heat shocked us. We and our fellow passengers quickly stripped off sweaters and coats that most had brought on the plane.
While our arrival was much the same, it was quickly apparent that not much else was. Cambodia was not on most people's travel radar in 2004. The immigration area of the terminal was much smaller at the time. We vividly remembered the row of baggy-suited officers sitting in a row with grim faces who scrutinized our passports and begrudgingly passed them to the next equally rumpled staffer for approval. None ever made eye contact and all seemed imposing.
Now replaced by a modern chaotic facility filled with foreign faces packing the roped queues, the officials seemed more interested in collecting the visa on arrival fee of US 30 dollars each than scrutinizing passports. No dollars in your wallet? No problem, the convenient ATM spits out crisp 100 dollar
bills right at the counter.
Just as we had 14 years before, we were met by a tuk-tuk and quickly transported down the bumpy road toward town. Other than the tuk-tuk, nothing else was the same. What was once a backwater town of mostly dirt roads is now a bustling city of bright lights, paved roads and every kind of diversion a tourist could think of. Massive hotels line the airport road, interspersed with restaurants, bars, nightclubs and massage parlors all doing brisk business to large crowds of westerners and Chinese tourist groups. Everything was still rough around the edges but nothing was as we remembered.
Of course, everyone who visits Siem Reap is probably interested in visiting the amazing Angkor temples. Single and multi-day passes are available but are quite expensive. Where once we were limited by time, money is our current limiter and so we selected the mid-priced 3-day pass. We limited our visit this time to specific temples and were primarily interested in photographing them.
The weather was so shockingly hot we had trouble leaving the air conditioner in our modern hotel. So much so that it took
7 days to use our 3-day pass. We thought that by visiting in the late afternoons we could avoid the crowds and have better light to photograph the temples. Not so. Where Angkor was once off the beaten track for normal tourists it is now firmly on the mass tourism circuit. Angkor Wat is the most spectacular of the sites and we chose it as our first stop. The crowds were huge, all groups and wilted single travelers. Everyone seemed sweated through and most were in various stages of fatigue. Everything from slightly slowed down to those who had given up and were just sitting in any shade they could find. The site was still amazing, but it was so overwhelmed that it was difficult to really enjoy. Even photography was challenging as every view was swarmed by selfie-taking singles or group posers in front of anything attractive.
Over the days we also visited the Bayon at Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm and a few of the smaller temples near Ta Prohm. The smallest of the temples were the most fun as they were the only ones where we could beat the crowds and have any type
of feeling that the original explorers must have felt.
On the days not spent at the temples, we made our way around town. On our earlier visit, we had trouble finding much to do. The famous backpacker watering hole "Angkor What?" was once located on a dirt road with nothing around it. It is now surrounded by hundreds of brightly lit restaurants and bars on the so-called "Pub Street". Any type of food from Mexican to Italian to Japanese can now be found in the ceiling fan cooled patio restaurants along the streets. Bars, from tiny local joints to laser lit discos, fill up the rest of the area. Three night markets surround the area and plenty of street vendors take up any other space not used. We found a few less obtrusive places to enjoy a few beers but mostly found cheap and delicious food in other areas of town nearer to our hotel. We did get a chance to visit the classic Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor which was the original hotel in town and enjoyed a beer from the veranda overlooking the river at the Foreign Correspondents Club.
After a little more than
a week, we decided to move on. Prior to arriving in Cambodia, we hadn't made any specific plans past Angkor and didn't really know where to go. Some people we met seemed to enjoy Battambang and so we decided to catch a bus there. We were told it was less touristy than Siem Reap and we looked forward to the opportunity to ditch the tourist crowds and perhaps get to see some of the "real" Cambodia.
Battambang was surprisingly larger than Siem Reap. To be honest we didn't find much to do. At one time there was the so-called "bamboo train" that was popular to ride. The railway has been repaired for real trains and it no longer runs. A bat cave looked interesting but proved to be quite distant and we decided not to visit. The bat cave has millions of bats that leave the cave at sunset and might have been fun. Most tours combine it with the nearby "Killing Caves" from the Khmer Rouge time and we really did not want to visit any of these grim reminders of the past.
It didn't really leave much to see. The heat increased
but we still managed to spend some time walking around town and along the river in the cooler evenings. We were surprised to find lots of excellent bargain-priced restaurants and spent many morning, afternoons and evenings in the quiet cafes enjoying delicious Khmer food along with many western choices. A few art galleries in town were interesting and we spent some time visiting.
Our last stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh. After another long bus ride through the countryside, we arrived at this modern Metropolis of about 7 million. Hotels were popping up everywhere and the city gave off a look of a combination of Bangkok and Hanoi. We stayed outside of the tourist area around the river and very close to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Our room was on the 9th floor so we had excellent views of the city from our balcony. Because Tuol Sleng is a popular stop with visitors many restaurants have opened in the area and it was convenient to get out to restaurants during the day.
In the interest of truth in travel, we didn't do much in Phnom Penh and probably wasted an
opportunity. After 12 weeks of backpacking around China, Vietnam and Cambodia we were spent. Every time we got motivated to go anywhere the heat deterred us from anything but going out to eat. We found a nice expat bar close to the hotel where many of the young westerners in town for work gather in the evenings for beer and we spent some time hanging out there. We found long lunches and dinners in the local cafes to be relaxing and to be enough time spent out of the hotel during the hot days and evenings.
Even though we were 1 block from the Tuol Sleng (S21) Genocide Museum and could literally see it from our balcony, we chose not to visit. Cambodia seems to be moving quickly away from its tragic past and we thought perhaps we wanted to remember the country for what we saw during our visit and not for what it was in the late 1970's.
Unfortunately, I feel we may look back on Cambodia as a missed opportunity. Of all the countries we have visited in the last 7 years this is the one we learned the least about.
It is partly because of the way we have been traveling for the last few months. Living in hotels and eating in restaurants is not our preferred way of travel. Especially in countries like Cambodia, we felt as if we were always surrounded by other tourists and were confined to see things designed for them. Angkor was still impressive but we found it overrun. Everyone seemed to speak English and Cambodians seem very friendly and good natured so we should have been able to have some good conversations. But we didn't. I don't know why. Maybe it was the heat or travel burnout or just a general lack of ambition.
Cambodia has changed a lot in the 14 years since we first visited. It seems like a country moving in the right direction. The people seem happy, but to be honest I leave the country not really knowing for sure. We have one more country to visit on this Asian leg of our endless journey. It will be cooler and perhaps we will find our enthusiasm again. I hope so.
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Kuan Yin
Karen Johnson
Thanks
Thanks for this blog. I've not been to Cambodia, though it's on my horizon. I felt much the same way about Myanmar: friendly people, big temples being overrun with selfie-taking tourists, and a big build up in some areas of service catering to tourists.Don't get me wrong - I appreciate flush toilets, but I don't go to Asia to eat at KFC.