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Published: February 10th 2010
01/20/10 - 01/24/10 We left Battambang at 7am on board the boat for Siem Reap. We had been told in guide books the journey could take anywhere from 4-12 hours - that's quite the variation! - depending on the water levels. Being it the dry season, we were told when we bought our tickets (20 USD) that it would take 6-7 hours - not bad, we thought! As we board the boat, the helpers take our packs and shove them under seats and strategically place us in certain seats (not together), in hopes of keeping the boat level - this is when we start to wonder if taking the boat was smart - will we get stuck? As more poeple board, we eventually get to sit together, which is good, because it would have been a long, boring ride otherwise! So off we sail, with about 25 other tourists and a dozen Cambodians down the windiest, curivest, narrow river we have ever been on!
It was cloudy that day, so a bit chilly at first, we our minds were quickly diverted from the cold by the awesome scenery surrounding us! We were passing village upon village and it was
so interesting to see the homes, the people and the daily life go on around us. Most homes back onto the water so that they can pump water from the Mekong River (which, if you look at the pics, is NOT clean) for cleaning, cooking and dirnking. Apparently these people are used to the water so it doesn't make them sick. We saw people fishing, gardening, bathing, brushing their teeth, taking a tinkle and just playing in the same water! Most of the homes we saw were quite rundown, and many of them only had rooves, no side walls (which is probably ok during the dry season, but a bit more of a problem in the wet season!). Almost every home had a boat, or some form of floating transportation so they could get to a bigger village for supplies. The farther we got from Battambang, the more empoverished the villages seemed. We also passed many floating villages, which was really interesting! They even had floating cages for their pigs and chicken beside their homes!
We were told that "halfway" through the trip we would stop for lunch, so when we pulled off to a floating restaurant at 10:30,
we thought we had it made! We would be in Siem Reap before 2:00 for sure! Since it was early and we weren't starving, we decided to hold off on lunch until we reached our destination, so we bought a bag of chips to tide us over until then. We would later find out that that was a baaaad decision.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, except for when we got slightly stuck a couple times because of how shallow the river had become. It was an easy fix with a couple helpers using large sticks to push the boat backwards to get unstuck. There was also a stretch of the River that was a protected Bird Sanctuary and was filled with lots of different types of birds and really big nests! Mike even managed to snap a photo of a little colourful bird flying in the trees!
The narrow River finally opened up into the Tonle Sap Lake, which is a huge lake and right when the boat reached the dead centre of the lake, the engine stops. Awesome. Oh, and it's about 3:00 by this point and we are starving! The crew fiddles around
with the engine, draining some things, trying again, but the engine keeps turning off. After about 30 minutes of this, the driver mutters something in Cambodian that we imagine would translate as "Screw it. We're going anyways" because we proceeds to start the boat and continue to drive despite the thick cloud of black smoke coming from the back of the boat!
We finally reached the shore of Siem Reap just after 4:00 that afternoon....after a solid 9+ hours on that boat, we were ready to get off! As bad as it sounds, the trip wasn't really that bad because the sceneery was beautiful and always changing! Anyways, so we got ourselves into a tuk-tuk who insisted that his friend just opened up this brand new hotel, it was 6 USD per night with hot water, private bath and cable tv...sound too good to be true? Well, it wasn't. We let him convince us to go there rather than the hotel we had picked out from the guide books, but unfortunately the new hotel (lodge #10) was all full. As were the next 3 hotels of his friends that he took us to. Finally we got to one with
rooms available, same amenities, just a higher price. So what does our driver do? He convinces the hotel to only charge us 6 USD since he had promised us a place for that price! Who can complain about private bath, hot water, AC and cable tv for 6 dollars? So we quickly dropped off our bags and headed out to explore the town and finally get some grub!
We fell in love with Siem Reap right away! It's a beautiful town, with a river separating it into two halves, lots of trees and cute French-style buildings. They have done a lot to make this town pretty because it attracts so many tourists who visit Angkor Wat, which is just on the outskirts of the city. For this reason, the main tourist area is veryyyyy touristy - you hardly see any locals around, the restaurants all cater to tourists, as well as the markets which are full of Cambodian souvenirs and "Bar Street" which is packed every night with tourists grabbing cheap booze. While wandering the city we happened to run in to 3 people who we know from Yangsan! They are all English teachers there, from South Africa, and
were just finishing their tour in Siem Reap. We had no idea they were going to be there so it was totally random and cool that we saw them! After exchanging some stories, they pointed us to a restaurant that somewhat ressembles our beloved sam gip sal Korean meal. This was a buffet-style meal where you pick your food and meat from a buffet table then cook it at your table! It was..alright...we were a little skeptical since the raw meat was all sitting out but we decided it would be ok since our friends ate there. We grilled the meat and they made us some kind of cabbage soup, that I didn't like, but Mike thought was good. Following dinner, we wandered the city more, browsed the market and settled in at a French wine bar to share some wine before heading to bed - our tuk-tuk driver was picking us up at 5:00am the following day to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat!
Well, the problems started at around 2am, when my stomach started to feel upset. I made a run for the bathroom and every 30 minutes there after the bathroom was my best friend (and thank
goodness we had a real flush toilet, not the kind where you dump buckets of water into the bowl to flush it!!). Needless to say, by 5am I was in NO shape to visit temples, so we decided to postponse our day at Angkor Wat and we both went back to sleep. By 10am when I was still not feeling any better we decided to scrap Angkor Wat altogether for the day. I felt terrible wasting a day of sight-seeing, but when Mike tried to get me to go out for lunch, I could barely even walk out of the hotel - it just wasn't gonna happen that day! The one thing that made me feel a bit better was that it was drizzly/cloudy all day, so at least I didn't waste a NICE day!!
Mike spent part of the afternoon on his own, eating lunch, exploring more of the city and enjoying himself more than he would of with Ms Sicky in the hotel room. Our hotel had a rooftop balcony with chairs and hammocks so we hung out there for a bit in the afternoon. I was starting to feel a bit better by dinner so I
agreed to leave the walls of the hotel and venture out. Only, the "feeling better" thing only applied when I was laying down! We went to an Irish Pub for dinner and I ordered the most basic thing on the menu - spaghetti with marinara sauce and could barely force 3 bites in my mouth. We weren't sure if my sickness was from food I ate or from the malaria meds, so going to bed that night we crossed out fingers when I took the Malarone pill that tonight would not mirror the previous night. Luckily I slept soundly that night, and although I still wasn't feeling 100%, I decided that I wasn't going to waste another day in bed, so we met our tuk-tuk driver at 5am as planned to catch sunrise over Angkor Wat temple.
Side note: The complex of Angkor Wat is a series of many temples, built between the 8th and 12th centuries that were used for various purposes and at various times throughout history. They were all abandonned and later discovered in the 19th century and have seen been restored as best as possible. The complex of Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument
in the world and people flock from all over to see these magnificent temple ruins. Among this complex of temples, is the main jewel, Angkor Wat temple. Its the largest of all the temples and is where the name of the complex derives from.
After purchasing our tickets (40USD for a 3 day pass), we hurried to get a good spot on the edge of the pond to watch the sky lighten as the sun rises over Angkor Wat temple. It was only when we had a spot and sat down that we noticed the lack of stars in the sky. Yup, that's right, it was cloudy as can be and sunrise was definitely less than spectacular!! Slightly (ok, not slight, very) disappointed, we went to meet our tuk-tuk driver at his friend's restaurant for breakfast. Start to notice a trend? All the tuk-tuk drivers are friends with hotel and restaurant owners. They bring their customers to these places and get a little something for it in return. I'm pretty sure our driver got free breakfast at this place he brought us to! For breakfast Mike had eggs and bread and bacon while I tried to be healthy and
have yogurt and museli. haha. At least I tried! When the yogurt arrived, it was the not the yogurt we are used to back home, and I could not eat it! So I gave up on healthy and ordered pancakes with honey! Much better!
Our tuk-tuk driver had told us that the policy was that if you went to the temples for sunrise, you would be done in the afternoon and not see sunset. If you wanted to see sunset, you would start later in the day. Well, we wanted both, plus we wanted to visit a temple on the outskirts of town, so we paid him a little extra to take us alll day. 😊
First stop,
Banteay Srei. This temple is 20km outside of the main loop of Angkor Wat and is not part of the normal tour. It means Citadel of the Women and it made almost entirely of pink sandstone, meaning that it has a pinkish tinge to it, which is quite fitting! This being our first of the temples at Angkor, we took our time, touring it slowly, admiring the beautiful colours and the intricate carvings on the entry ways and walls.
On our way back to the main roads where the temples are found, we stopped at the Landmine Museum, where this Cambodian man has showcased his extensive work in demining Cambodia. It was interesting to learn abouthow this is done and see lots of mines that he found, originating from many different countries. Landmines were a major problem in the recent past of Cambodia, and is still on ongoing issue today. All major tourist sights are posted with signs announcing the area free of UXOs (unexploded objects) and landmines. We also stopped at a roadside market where we tasted palm sugar candy, which was slightly like maple candy, very sugary and sweet. Sometime after that I snapped out of my crappy feeling and was back to my normal self, much to my relief!
Next, we went to
Ta Prom temple, which was one of our favourites, by far! This temple was built during the 12th century and when it was discovered, rather than restoring it, they decided to leave it in it's "natural state" to show people how it looked when it had been discovered. It has since been maintained in this state of neglect, which makes it different
than other temples. Another thing that makes it stand out are the trees! The biggest trees we have ever seen on our lives were at this temple, and in some places the growth of the trees had destroyed the temple, causing parts of fall down, while in other parts, the trees were holding the structure in place! This temple and it's famous trees were used during the filming of the Lara Croft movie! Unfortunately, due to the high volume of tourist traffic, they have built some wooden platforms and ropped off some area really close to the trees (undoubtably partly for safety reasons), which takes away from the authenticity of this temple. Nonetheless, it was a favourite!
We met our driver and went to lunch after, again, at one of his friend's restaurants, then continued on in our templing, hitting up
Ta Keo, Thommanom and Chau Say Thevoda. At Ta Keo, we braved the steep stairs and climbed to the top. You might think 50 steps to the top is nothing, but when the steps are each about a foot higher than the last and just wide enough to fit your foot sideways, it takes all four limbs to
get you slowly up these stairs! Knowing that I hadn't been feeling well, our tuk-tuk driver warned us about this temple and thought that I wouldn't be able to climb the steps - ha! I showed him! Getting out of the tuk-tuk he would say to Mike "Take care of your buddy!". The other two temples were quite small and relatively quick visits. The nice thing about them was their lack of other tourists! After these, we went through the Victory Gate to the Great City of
Angkor Thom which is home to a few different temples as well as other terraces and monuments. We spent about 3 hours wandering around Angkor Thom, including
Leper King Terrace, Elephant Terrace, Phimeanakas and the Royal Palace remains. The Elephant Terrace is a wall, 300m long with various different carvings and statues of ...you guessed it! elepants all along the length of it. We visited a few other tiny temples, that were nothing spectacular, then went to the
Bapuon, which is apparently cool and has a huge reclining Buddha statue in it, but it was closed for renovations when we were there. The green construction mesh and scaffolding definitely took away from the
beauty of this temple!
Finally we made our way to another of our favourite temples,
Bayon which simply glowed in the afternoon light. This temple is made of 37 towers (there used to be 49, but only 37 remain) each with faces carved into it in all 4 of the cardinal directions. It makes for some great play with the sunlight and amazing views. Another great thing about this temple is that over the years it had been added to and reno'd so the result is this temple which is maze-like...You could easily spend hours here and probably still not see every nook and cranny! We felt like we were actually exploring the temple for the first time, because although the temple was crowded with people, it was easy to find places of solitude and silence.
To finish off our day, we went to
Phnom Bakheng to watch sunset. This temple is on the top of a mountain, so we joined the crowds and climbed for 10 or 15 minutes to reach the top. Everyone scrambled up the narrow steps on the temple to get a seat and watch the sun set over the horizon. We were so
Sunrise morning # 1
Not much of a sunrise through all the clouds!enthralled with sun set, that we actually forgot to even look at the temple! I don't even think we took a picture of the temple, we just used it as a place to sit and watch the sun fall! It was a great sunset with nice colours in the sky and it was a satisfying finish to a long and hot, but amazing day!
After cleaning up at the hotel, we went for dinner at a Mexian restaurant, claiming to be the best mexican food in Asia! Now that's a pretty big claim, so we decided some margaritas were in order and we had dinner. And I will say, it was good, but I doubt it was the BEST mexican food in Asia...or I hope so anyways! We met a nice couple from the US who were traveling for 12 weeks and had a nice time swapping stories with them before hitting the markets again! This time we were ready to barter and came out with a few purchases, including a 2$ hammock, some silk pillowcases and a few other little souvenirs. We flopped into bed early that night, exhausted after the day we had an anticipating another early
morning, as we decided to try for a better sunrise tomorrow!
Let me take a minute to mention the scene at the entrance to each and every temple. There are designated spots where tuk-tuks drop off their passengers and wait for them to return so virtually every tourist enters most temples at the same point. These areas are now filled with kids and adults who get right in your face trying to sell you everything from bracelets to books to paintings to water. The kids are the toughest to ignore because in all likelihood they are working for someone else so the money they make is not theirs to keep - but they certainly tug those heart strings when they talk about not being able to afford school, and please just one dollar, would make such a difference. However, we obviously can't buy things from everyone! We tried to spread out our spending, buying a painting here, a book there and drinks whenever we needed them (which was often in the sweltering Cambodian heat!). It was as sad as it was annoying to have people run up and follow you everytime you entered and left a temple. One little
Banteay Srei
Made mostly of sandstone, this pink temple was a beautiful start to our tour! girl in particular, was very persistent and followed us for a good 10 minutes trying to sell her bracelets. It was sad, but we just simply didn't want any. This was one of our last temples, and since we were leaving for Laos the following day, we were trying to get rid of our Riel (Cambodian currency - although the USD is much more commonly used there). 1 USD = 4000r, and we happened to have 3900 riel left, so I offered her 3900 riel for her bracelets rather than a dollar, and she was adament that 3900 was no good to her. She needed a dollar. That was a tough one to walk away from, for sure.
Waiting for our tuk-tuk driver the next morning, we were delighted to see stars in the sky, which meant that we would get the sunrise we were hoping for! We got there early, while it was still pitch black out and made out way to the pond using our headlamps as guides. The nearby restaurants were giving you chairs to sit on if you bought coffee, so we had some delicious Cambodian coffee and plopped ourselves down to await the rising
sun! (Side note: Cambodian cofffee is delicious - yes, this is Danielle saying this too!- and when you ask for milk they use sweetened condensed milk which eliminates the need for sugar and is a delicious alternative to regular milk!) We spent about 2 hours sitting there watching the sky slowly turn from black to light blue then mixed with hues of yellow, pink, orange and purple. Finally the sun peeked it's head over the towers of Angkor Wat, shining bright, and satisfied, we went for breakfast.
Day 2 we visited another slew of temples including
Banteay Kdei, Pre Rup, Neak Pean, Ta Som, Preah Khan and of course, la piece de resistance,
Angkor Wat. We definitely started to feel "templed out" as the day progressed and some temples started blending in to one another. Some visits were much quicker than the previous days and we finished our templing around 2:00. Luckily, right about the time when we didn't want to see anymore temples, we came to Preah Khan, which was a huge temple with large trees and great ruins, similar to Ta Prom. Following this great temple, we finally got to tour the inside of Angkor Wat after
seeing only the outside for sunrise the past two mornings. Angkor Wat is the main attraction in the Angkor complex and inside the main walls of the temple used to be a whole city! Today only the remains of the temple itself exist, as the rest of the city was made of wood which has long been destroyed.
Saving Angkor Wat for last was in theory a good decision because if we had seen it first, the other temples might have been overshadowed by Angkor's greatness, but saving it for last meant that we had seen so many other temples and great ruins and carvings, that Angkor itself might have been less grand to us. Slightly disappointing was the fact that a few major parts of the temple are under construction to be restored and were therefore closed to the public. Not only this, but these parts were covered in green mesh which wasn't so photogenic. Still, this temple is grand, from the ornate carvings that line the walls surrounding the temple, to the many towers at the centre of it all. It wasn't our favourite temple, but it was amazing nonetheless. We had read in a newspaper in
Phnom Penh that the top tower was going to be unexpectedly open to the public during our visit, but the stairs were still blocked off, so we weren't as lucky as some others, such as Mara and Drew, who later told us that they were allowed up to the top.
Exhausted and truely templed out, we decided to relax for the afternoon with a massage! We paid 6USD each for an hour-long massage, which was very relaxing after two long days of exploring temples. We had a little red-faced moment when Mike's masseur lifted his towel a little too high when she asked him to turn over! She was pretty embarassed and I think she apologized to me more than she did to Mike!! haha We enjoyed a very delicious Italian-style pizza that evening for dinner, before going to the Temple Club for some drinks and a free traditional Apsara dancing show. When the dances began we immediately recognized the first dance as the same as the first dance performed by the children at Banteay Chhmar! The costumes this time were more elaborate tho and the dancers were professionals!
We made our last market trip that night, going
to the Night Market rather than the Old Market, and realized that the Night Market had much much nicer stuff! If only we had gone earlier! Still, we made some purchases including a carved wooden elephant and a couple more pillow cases (we just couldn't resist!) but could easily have bought 10 other things that we loved! If it weren't for the size of our packs, we would have probably gone crazy buying this market out, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise! Once again, we hit the sack relatively early, as we were getting picked up for our day-long bus to Laos at 4:45am!
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