Day 4 - Siem Reap

We were up early this morning (around 4am) to get ready and pack. We headed to the airport to fly to our next destination - Siem Reap. Ironically the flight is only ~40 minutes. It took us much longer to get to the airport and through security/customs than it did to fly to Cambodia.

We arrived in Cambodia and exited the airport. We hired a car to take us to our hotel. We were as surprised by the rural sprawl of Siem Reap as we were by the size of Bangkok. Siem Reap was a very different place than we imagined.

We were staying at the Le Chanthou Boutique. It was a charming hotel. It does operate a bit differently than a US hotel. When we arrived it was still fairly early in the morning so our room was not ready (not that we expected it would be). They asked us to wait 30 minutes while they cleaned it. We didn’t really want to wait so we asked if we could leave our bags with them and come back later. That was fine by them and they had us wheel our bags next to the front desk, which is where they left them. It made us a little nervous to leave our bags out in the open, but we would soon learn this was standard operating procedures at most of our hotels in Cambodia and Thailand.

Right outside our hotel was a tuk tuk driver. We hopped in his tuk tuk and he took us to the old market area. In this area there are numerous restaurants, massage parlors and people hawking souvenirs. It was too early for lunch and it seemed like the shopping was still working on opening so we decided to move onto the next item on our itinerary.

Our next destination was Preah Prom Rath Pagoda. It was walking distance from the old market. We used Alison’s phone to navigate and made it, but when we arrived we weren’t sure we had arrived. We were at a large complex of buildings, but nothing really indicated they were the place we were looking for open to the public. We walked around and determined this was the site. There were some interesting religious buildings, but the site was a little underwhelming.

The tile in this area was so ornate. I loved it. 

Our next stop was the Royal gardens. The gardens were ~15 minute walk from Preah Prom Rath. We walked through the city along a river. The gardens were a complete bust. I mean it looked like they aspire to create beautiful gardens, but they were mostly overgrown and appeared in disarray.

Sometime when you travel internationally there are hard days. This looked like one of those days. Siem Reap was so different than what we expected. Alison did her research, but there are limits to what you can find online. We were underwhelmed. We began to wonder if we made a mistake deciding to spend two days in Cambodia. We were unsure if we would find enough to do to successfully fill one day.

We decided to walk back to the market and eat lunch. Vendors in Cambodia were on the aggressive side. We had a number of tuk tuk drivers follow us around and kept asking us if we wanted a ride, even after we told them no many times. Eventually we would ignore them until they went away.

Lunch was good. We found a place near the older market that sold Khmer food. We had fried spring rolls, a Khmer curry, and beef lok lak. It was delicious. We were feeling better after we ate. While we ate lunch we re-calibrated our plan.

Alison wanted to learn about Cambodia and Angkor Wat, so we walked to the Angkor National Museum. It was ~5 minutes past the royal gardens. We retraced our steps in that direction. The Angkor museum was fantastic. It is easily one of the best museums I have visited. I was impressed with the layout. Each gallery lead right into the next one and the museum had a logical progression. The first gallery was a hall of 1,000 Buddhas. It was an impressive collection. This led into many galleries detailing the history, art, and culture of Cambodia. The museum used physical displays, written text, and multimedia presentations to get their point across. We learned so much about Cambodia. My favorite exhibit was the gallery focused on Angkor Wat. This gallery provided a good primer for the monument we would be visiting soon.

We finished up at the museum and walked back to the old market. We decided to get a massage. Massages are even less expensive in Cambodia than they are in Thailand. We got a full body couples massage for $20.

We finished our massages just in time to meet our tuk tuk driver, Soth. He was the same driver we had earlier. When he dropped us off at the old market he inquired about our plans (we have learned most people in Cambodia want to up sell you whenever possible.) We told him we wouldn’t need a tuk tuk driver until the evening when we planned to visit Angkor Wat. He told us he would meet us and we agreed. We weren’t sure what it would cost, and thought we might get ripped off, but we were going with it. He showed up right on time and we were on our way.

He took us to the ticket office and waited while we bought our tickets. At Angkor Wat you can buy a 1-day, 3-day, or 7-day ticket, but there is a little trick. If you buy a one day ticket after ~4:45 you can use that ticket to visit Angkor Wat for sunset the day you buy the ticket and you can use the ticket for the entire next day. That was our strategy - it could not have worked better.

I loved riding in a tuk tuk down this tree lined street on the way to Angkor Wat. This will be one of my favorite memories from Cambodia.

After we bought our tickets we zipped over to Angkor Wat in our tuk tuk. It is quite something to be zipping along in an open air tuk tuk down a wide street with thick forest on either side.

Soth took us straight to Angkor Wat. Alison has originally planned for us to visit another temple for sunset. This is because the main temple doesn’t have great sunset views. However, we ended up at the main temple and it worked out well because we got some great golden hour pictures. Because we were at the temple so close to closing they were actively kicking people out and many people had already left for the day. This gave us a little preview of the temple and an opportunity to take great photos with limited crowds. Plus the sunset wasn’t particularly good, so it wasn’t like we were missing out. A little after 5:30pm they kicked us out. We crossed over the temporary bridge and sat across the moat from the monument and marveled at it for a while.

When we were satisfied we found our tuk tuk and headed back to the hotel. There is a restaurant at the hotel where we ate dinner. They made excellent Khmer food. We had cashew stir-fry chicken and a red curry. Both were good. We went to bed early ~7:45. We both fell asleep immediately - walking so much in the heat takes ton a lot out of you. Going to bed early was a good choice because we were going to be up early the next day for sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Alison made a friend at dinner