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Published: January 10th 2015
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Had an overnight stay in Manila, to attend a cousin's wedding. Taking advantage of having loads of trusted people to look after my kids, Rinka and myself with two of my college friends took an evening flight for a quick 3 nights and 3 days vacation to Siem Reap. It was such a great relief to get away from the hassles and traffic of holiday crazy Manila. It took us four hours just to get from North of Manila to the airport. But that's all in the past now, until we see Manila again in 4 days.
We arrived at the lovely Bou Savvy Guesthouse around 9 pm and was in search for food soon after that. If food was a sign for a great vacation, then our late dinner at a side street restaurant of noodle soup and flavorful vegetable fried rice with cashews are clear indication that we will have fantastic time. To see the ruins of the Khmer Empire was already on my bucket list, well since the day I saw Tomb Raider. Just few years back you have to catch a flight in Asia to SR only via Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. Thank you LCC, now
Cebu Pacific already flies direct from Manila, and should I say, their service staff seemed a bit more professional and fancier than the Osaka-Manila flight we just took.
Our accommodation includes a two day tour of the Angkor Archaeological Park via a tuktuk, excluding the Angkor Pass fee which is priced at 40 USD for three-day pass. We upgraded our tour with an ac van for an additional 150 USD, best decision we've made. We were able to bear the heat walking around the temples, knowing we will be boarding our air-conditioned van soon enough, if we just persevere a little bit more. But riding a tuktuk for our sunrise tour at 5 in the morning is a completely different story. December morning was really cold for a shirt and short pants.
There was a lot of boboos on our first day of touring. We were pretty much in awe when our tiny group of four reached Bayon. You can't just resist staring with oohs and aahs at all those brick faces looking down on you. Before we know it our friend, Dennis is nowhere in sight. Without the modern conveniences of a phone and an internet connection,
we are gonna do this the old fashioned way. Scan these huge, crowded space on foot. As we are atop the Bayon platform, we have decided that our friend, Mei, will go down the exit stairs and we will meet at the entrance. Me and Rinka will go down the other stairs we used to climb to get to the platform. The three of us realized that there were four exits to these massive place, so we all decided to go to the entrance and hopefully our friend, will do the same. We've waited and he didn't show up. Now its time to look for our very convenient AC van, our non- English speaking driver only pointed to us where he will be parking, and sadly there were no vehicles at all on that direction. So again, we decided walking back to the Bayon entrance area. We were walking on an unpaved side street under tall trees, when we heard very loud rustling sounds. I assumed it was just flock of birds atop those trees. When suddenly Mei, let out a shriek and ran, so Rinka and myself, followed suit but, our tired and slow reflexes, and maybe just thinking
our friend just went a bit crazy, just quicken our pace a bit. Then in a split second saw a dried, long, thick wooden branch landed just a couple of inches from our foot. All the tuktuk drivers across the street just smiling and laughing at us, quite unsure, maybe they are happy we survived a near catastrophic incident or they are laughing at Mei's over reaction and me and my wife's lack of it. It was really nice that Mei, my best friend at the time I dipped my toes in law school was with us on this trip.
We went to a fruit stand, had mango and papaya, and everything was well again. We love it that fresh and healthy snacks are always withing reach in this city. My favorite is this bread with mixed veggies and sprinkle of chopped pork, its so tasty, filling and healthy as my wife would say. So, after having our fruit snacks we decided to walk to the Terrace of the Elephants, enjoyed the sight and then go back to the guesthouse, ask the staff to call our driver, and maybe Dennis would have the sense to go back there too.
Then an interesting thing happened, our driver was looking for us at the Terrace of the Elephants and through his gestures suggested that Dennis was also waiting for us back in the van. So we all had a good laugh and head to our lunch and see few more sights.
We went back to our guesthouse by around 3PM. Again through gesturing we thought we understood that our driver will pick us up at 5:30 to see the sunset from atop a mountain. We all rested and went down around 5:15 a bit early for our scheduled pick up time. It was not that bright anymore, so we sort of felt something got lost in translation again. Well, the driver meant to tell us we should be at the viewing spot at 5:30. Being the happy bunch that we are, we just let him drive us to the foot of the viewing spot. We then ran up the mountain although most of the crowds are on the way down already. A police officer on the track even gave us his "go for it" smirk. We know we wont be able to reach it on time, but it was nice
to have a good exercise and enjoy the nature trek.
Some famous sights around the world are sometimes overrated, over hyped or look better in pictures, but these ruins are definitely not one of those. It was a spell binding experience. It felt very spiritual seeing these preserved structures and very intricate carvings . I also love those massive trees growing in, on top and around some of the temples. But aside from the beauty of these ancient sights there is also something special about the Cambodian people. The way our driver held my arm to express gratitude or to explain something when his words failed, the side street restaurant owner who lit a candle on our table for me and my wife so we can take better food photos, hihihi. In all our travels, the guesthouse we've stayed in Siem Reap is the cheapest by far, but the staff's friendliness and the way they interact with their guest is remarkable.
There are still a lot of sights we failed to see, and we are simply captivated by this place. Hope to be able to come back again.
Our kids chose to be with their grandparents in
Manila rather than join us on this trip. We did miss them but really appreciate the alone time me and my wife spend with each other. Spending long hours at a cafe a couple of times in Siem Reap, is such a luxury we cannot afford even once with our kids in Osaka. A good 15 minutes to finish their drink and they are on their way playing around and making noises at Starbucks near our house. We do love traveling with them, but this time, I have more time to breath in the sights without susshing anyone and without spending a day at a theme park or going to a Mc Donald's because the food is to spicy or too weird for the kids. Siem Reap had been a good to me and Rinka. What a fantastic trip to end the year.
Happy New Year everyone.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Hot, hot, hot
It is hot. We took a break from exploring and went back to our hotel pool for a dip and then went back for sunset. So mud beauty. Glad you are having a get away. it is beautiful.