Advertisement
Another early flight for us ! This time we had to leave the hotel at 6am to catch our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia
In order to get to Cambodia from Chiang Mai, we needed to fly through Bangkok first where we had an hour layover.
The airport was empty as we went through the international departures terminal. We got up to show our passports at a customs desk and were quickly shunned away, told we need to fill out a departure card (with no information on it except our destination and passport number...seemed rather pointless)
Once through, we waited at our gate until we boarded a very small 50+/- person plane bound for Siem Reap.
The Siem Reap airport was small and tropical, similar to one you would find in Hawaii. Palm trees, but very flat surroundings with virtually no mountains.
Here we waited in line to go through customs and immigration. We had to purchase a short-term Cambodian Visa and paid $21 for it. They stapled it into our passports and later would remove it when we left the country. We even had
to have our photo taken for this "visa" !
We were staying at the Siem Reap Hostel for our first 2 nights, and they sent a tuk tuk (different style than those in Thailand) to pick us up at the airport.
As we drove down the highway, passing motorbikes filled will crops, chickens, and packed with people, we were talking about how there was a sense of sadness whenever we saw older people. There weren't many that we passed, or that we saw the whole time...
Between 1975 and 1979 an estimated 25% of the Cambodian population died. They think close to 2,000,000+/- people died in the Cambodian civil war/genocide. Their population is relatively young now, as many of the older folks passed away in work camps, or mass killings. In a country still clearly recovering from such a national tragedy, a sense of sadness overcame us. I still don't know enough about the genocide, and want to learn more...
As we approached the city center of Siem Reap, it was clear that this town had been recovering steadily since the end of the war. Tourist shops, open
air restaurants and boutiques lined the streets for the thousands of tourists that come through Siem Reap daily to visit what is considered the 8th Wonder of the World -- The Angkor Wat Temples.
It was mid-day and HOT. Our hostel had great reviews on trip advisor, and sure enough, welcomed us with open arms. There was a bar and a pool area towards the back, a make-shift concierge to help plan any activities, and most importantly clean rooms.
We had read before coming to Cambodia that they prefer to use the U.S Dollar rather than their Cambodian currency, the Reil...we didn't know just how crutial having US dollars would be until we arrived!
All places--hotels, restaurants, shops, taxi drivers--accept dollars, and many actually REQUIRE it ! They won't even take cambodian money. It was also funny becuase they won't take any dollars that look worn in any way. You have to have very, very crisp bills. There was even a sign at our hostel saying they cannot accept work, torn or heavily used US dollar bills because the Cambodian banks do not accept them apparently.
Our first
mission was to find an ATM. After wandering the city in search of a certain Canadian bank that does not charge ATM fees, we finally found it on the other side of town. This is where things got funny. THe ATM will only spit out 100 dollar bills...but then nobody in Cambodia wants to take the 100 dollar bills, nor do they even have enough change to give you becuase everything is SO cheap.
By cheap I mean, Thailand looks expensive compared to this ! Beers around town are 50 cents...Fancy cocktails are $2...You get a very large, meal that will stuff you to the brim for about $4...
By the time we found the ATM and got back to the hostel it was almost 4, and we were heading to Angkor Wat to see the sunset.
We learned that tuk tuk drivers here are very protective of their clients. For example, the tuk tuk driver who picked us up from the aiport is now "ours" -- He expects to drive us everywhere we want to go for the remainder of our time in Cambodia. Lauren was reading how there can
be some serious animosity between tuk tuk drivers here when they steal each other's clients.
Our driver was no where to be found so the hostel staff put us with a different guy. It was about a 15 minute drive to the entrance of the park. There, we bought three day passes to Angkor Wat and they take your picture and give you a whole ID card so that there's no funny business. We later learned that almost all of the ticket booths at Angkor Wat are actually owned by the Korean government, which is very controversial obviously because all these tourists come daily and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars for admission, but that money is not staying in Cambodia! So really, although all the people to come to see Angkor Wat, and I would assume the Cambodian government benefits from this, they really only benefit minimally, at least financially via the park itself...Very interesting.
We didn't think we had to wear our temple wear for sunset becuase most of the main temple is outdoors, but our tuk tuk driver said that actually the best temple to watch the sunset from you DO
need temple wear...We had him drop us off at the main Angkor Wat temple instead--we figured wherever we were the sunset should be pretty grand!
Surrounded by a huge moat and multiple layers of protective walls, the main temple was too large for words. I read before coming here that it's hard to explain to people who have never seen the size, but didn't realize it would be this difficult ! My jaw just kind of dropped as soon as we reached the main bridge to the entrance.
Considering this temple was built in the 12th century, it is still in spectacular condition.
We wandered around, the ginormous temple in front of us, yet still surrouned by smaller temples in every direction, and past all the temples was thick, thick jungle.
As we sat on one of the smaller temples, looking towards the grand Angkor Wat, just before the sun was to set, a group of Indian men approached us asking to take yet ANOTHER photo with us. 3rd time's a charm I guess? Blonds are hard to come by over here.
We said sure,
so two of them hopped up onto the staircase we were sitting on and insisted we scoot closer to them. I just don't understand what these people are going to say to their friends back home ! "Look at these blonde friends I made" ?!?
So strange...
The sunset was a little disappointing. The bright oranges and reds I've seen in photos were blocked by dark rain clouds. Though they looked a bit ominous, we had faith there would be little rain, as we have yet used our rain jackets (we thought we would be using these daily!)
We kept waiting for the bright colors to appear, until we suddenly realized we were the only people still at this grand 8th Wonder of the World... (story of our lives!)
We had our tuk tuk driver drop us off on Pub Street which is in the center of town, and definitely the tourist hotspot. A short street filled with vendors, fish pedicure places, restaurants and bars, we thought we'd wander until we found a decent place to eat.
We settled on a Cambodian BBQ place where
they bring a hot little stove to your table and you BBQ your own veggies and meat.
The choices of meat were off the charts -- The 'combo' plate included your average chicken, pork, beef...and then CROCODILE, FROG & KANGAROO !
No thanks. We are not adventurous enough for strange meats--Where do they even get Kangaroo...?
The food was mediocre. It was fun using the little stove over hot coals, but the broth could have been much tastier. Still fun !
As we were finishing our $5 feast at one of the "fancy" restaurants on Pub Street, a beautiful lightening show began ! The thunder sounded pretty far away, and there were only a few drops of rain, but TONS of lightening. Lots of "what if..." scenarios were going through our minds as we watched the many power lines swing above our heads, looking quite unstable in the thunder storm.
It was a short walk home in the lightening. We put ourselves to bed pretty early because we had ANOTHER early morning tomorrow -- 4am tuk tuk to make it to Angkor Wat
in time for sunrise.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.205s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb