Cambodia, Siem Reap: An Ancient Marvel

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We arrived in country #7 of our trip without any problems, and without the excitement of previous travel days (think of the crazy bus journeys we experienced in Laos). As we had previously booked flights to Siem Reap from Vientiane (Laos), we travelled somewhat in style; we were at least served drinks and food on the journey, which was a luxury compared to riding the bus.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints during this part of our trip, we had to limit our Cambodia travels to the cities of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, and were not able to explore the northern part of the country (luckily avoiding more intense bus journeys though!). Despite flying to Cambodia, we still were taking risks as Laos Airlines has had a notorious reputation for crashing in the mountains. You'll remember from our previous journal entries that Laos is a country covered in mountains (85% of it), and when we boarded the small propeller plane to reach our destination, our nerves were a little bit on edge. It didn't help that on the day we travelled, there seemed to be many thick clouds between Vientiane and Pakse (our first stop to collect more passengers), and then between Pakse and Siem Reap. So, any chance of our pilot actually seeing the mountains was completely dashed and we had to pray that the navigational systems on the plane were all okay.

The staff were great on the flight, superbly amicable as we have found the rest of the Laotians we have met to be, and since we experienced no more than a little slight turbulence in the heavy clouds, we both had to agree that the modernisation of Laos airlines' fleet of planes is working well. After flying for a couple of hours, we finally arrived in the Siem Reap airport and were met with a modern, clean airport which was pretty well organised. The queue (that would be a "line of people" to the Americans reading this) to obtain our visas upon arrival was a bit long, but an ATM machine was conveniently located next to the queue, and it allowed us to withdraw the necessary funds to purchase our visas whilst we waited for the queue to shorten. Spending money in Cambodia was very easy because all of the ATM machines dispensed US dollars and everything was priced in dollars. We could pay in Cambodian riels, but if we preferred to pay in dollars, that was completely fine. We didn't find any quarters, nickels, dimes or pennies in Cambodia, though, as any change owed back to us was paid in riels.

Just 6km outside Siem Reap, the ruins of the ancient city of Angkor, the capital of the Khmer kingdom from 802 until 1295 A.D., are one of the world's marvels. The "City of Kings," Angkor boasts some of the largest religious monuments ever constructed; it's a vast and mysterious complex of hulking sandstone blocks and was unknown to the world until French naturalist Henri Mahout literally stumbled onto them in 1861. Until then, the area of Angkor existed for centuries only as a myth - a wondrous city (or cities, to be exact), its exact location in the Cambodian jungle unknown. After the discovery, archaeologists flocked at Angkor Wat, only to be foiled by years of conflict that left the temples in the hands of the Khmer Rouge, who in turn damaged and pillaged many temples. Tourists have been the subsequent invaders, from the late 1990s, and today the sight is mobbed, but it is still possible to find those quiet moments in communion with this amazing man-made wonder. The temple complex at Angkor Wat covers some 97 sq. km (60 sq. miles) and carries the remains of passageways, moats, temples and palaces that represent centuries of building in the capital. Days spent scrambling about and exploring the temples are memorable, and this is a great place to bring adventurous kids of all ages who like to get their play clothes dirty.

Siem Reap means "Victory over the Thais" and refers to the 16th-century victory that solidified the Khmer kingdom -- though animosity between the two neighbors remains to this day. All of western Cambodia was once under Thai control, and Khmer people are very proud of their survival in the face of so many invaders, the very reason that an image of Angkor Wat graces the national flag. Once just a dusty track with a few storefronts, Siem Reap now supports a host of large five-star hotels and resorts, fine dining options aplenty, and the kind of good services, shops, galleries, and spas, that make the little city a new oasis of luxury in parched western Cambodia. The town's old market is a great stop for souvenir purchases, and the nearby downtown area is abuzz day and night with fine dining options and quaint bars and party spots.

In our opinion, despite Siem Reap being a bit over-commercialised like Luang Prabang in Laos, the Cambodians have done a better job on their offerings to tourists. Prices seemed to be fairer on the whole for travel, food and market goods, and the Cambodians are more realistic when it comes to bargaining prices. Having said this, we purchased some goods in the Old Market in Siem Reap town on our last day there and had a great shopping experience bargaining with the friendly market vendors. On our first day in town, we also spent a lot of time in Central Market shopping for sunglasses and DVDs. The final market in Siem Reap that we visited was the Night Market, which is a newer and more upscale market that was nice to walk around but we didn't end up buying anything there.

The Rosy Guesthouse in Siem Reap was our favourite place of accommodation so far on our trip. It is run by a British-Australian couple who have lived in Siem Reap for a couple of years, and they have an extremely well-run place. They have hired a group of friendly Khmers and one Australian (Tannith) as their staff and they offer all the amenities we could have asked for, and more. Besides beautiful, clean rooms, there is a pool table and darts board downstairs in the bar area, and a nice casual seating area where we could order food and play different board games. On the first floor, there is a lounge area with hammocks where anyone can chill out and read or just relax. The owners have a friendly golden retriever named Pickle and a cat named Branston, and a 6 week old kitten which they think they will name Marmite or Marmalade, to stick with the food condiment theme. As we both love animals, we enjoyed hanging out in the pool room playing games of pool and darts and playing with the animals.

The primary reason for us travelling to Siem Reap was to see the temples of Angkor Wat and the surrounding areas. As the temples in the area are spaced quite far apart, we needed to hire transport to see the temples, and for $20 (or £12), we had our own tuk-tuk driver named Mr. Seila to drive us around the temples for two days. We had decided to visit the temples with a 1-day pass that cost $20 each (a 3-day pass cost $40 and a 5-day pass cost $60), and on the first day with Mr. Seila, we went to pick up our tickets at 4:30pm. By doing this, we were able to enter the temple grounds for an hour using our full-day ticket for the next day, and we chose to see the famous Angkor Wat temples as the sun started to set. We thought that if we saw one of the temples on the day before our full day pass was valid, it would make the next day of temple gazing a bit easier, since there were so many temples to see.

At Angkor Wat, we climbed the steep and dangerous steps up to the main section of the temple in order to see the beautiful Cambodian sunset, but we couldn't see much other than some beautiful colours in the sky due to some low-hanging clouds that were covering the sun. Despite not observing a perfect sunset, the temple at Angkor Wat was amazing and still very much intact, even though it was over 1000 years old. Climbing down the steep steps proved to be nerve-wracking, and a large group of Japanese tourists watching people descend applauded loudly as people stepped onto the floor at the base of the treacherous steps.

After walking around the Angkor Wat temple for about an hour, we exited the temple walls and headed back towards the area where Mr. Seila was waiting for us, along with over a hundred other tuk-tuk drivers. We spent several minutes trying to find our driver, and as we were walking around looking for him, we were surrounded by a huge mass of little children trying to sell us post cards, jewelry, musical instruments, cold drinks and items of clothing. The children were all very cute and could speak English pretty well (at least the phrases that they have learned to peddle their goods), but it was sad to know that they were hanging around the temples selling things instead of attending school.

We ended up facing groups of kids at each temple we visited the next day as well. and even though the kids were quite cute, the persistent little buggers would not take no for an answer and it was really hard to keep our cool with them at times, since they were clearly only doing what their parents put them up to. We didn't end up buying anything from them on that first day at the temples and, looking back in retrospect, it was actually a great way for the kids to learn and practice speaking English, and also to learn a little about business, selling and interacting with different types of people from different cultures. We ended up buying some postcards from a little girl on our next day in the temples, but we wish we would have bought more over both days, since all of the kids were working hard to make some money for their families.

After our first taste of temples at Angkor Wat, Mr. Seila took us back to The Rosy Guesthouse and we enjoyed our first Cambodian meal, an Amok curry with chicken. It is a Khmer dish and was very similar to a mild Thai yellow curry, but made much simpler with only chicken, sweet basil leaves and a coconut based curry sauce. The dish was very tasty and we both ended up having the same thing a second time before leaving Siem Reap. Doing things twice was a theme for our eating habits in Siem Reap; we also had Mexican food twice at a place called Viva's next to the Old Market. Yes, Mexican food in Cambodia was pretty decent; they had very tasty tortilla chips with salsa and pork enchiladas. We ended up trying every Mexican restaurant we came across while in Indochina, and we are both building up our excitement for Mexican food in Arkansas in the second half of June when we arrive in the US. Not as exciting as the Mexican food or Amok curries, but keeping with our eating theme in Siem Reap, we also had breakfast at Rosy's and ordered the same thing as well as plates of homemade chips (twice). Chips, for the Americans reading this, are not deep fried potato slices in this context, but large potato wedges which are cooked in hot oil - think of thick cut "french fries".

For our full day at the temples, we had arranged to meet Mr. Seila outside The Rosy Guesthouse at 7:00am in order to make the most of our day. Little did we know the previous evening when we agreed the time with Mr. Seila, that we would end up enjoying several Angkor beers over many games of pool and darts later that night. This made a 6:30am wake-up very difficult but after a hearty Rosy breakfast, we were able to generate the energy needed for the day.

Our first stop of the day was at Angkor Thom and our first stop inside the temple's walls was Bayon Temple. This was one of our favourite temples in Siem Reap, a massive structure with several square towers, each of which had large faces carved into the sides of the towers. As we approached the massive ruins, it looked like we were faced with a large temple built with huge stones which were struggling to stay together. On closer inspection, however, enormous faces started appearing and we could see all of the carved visages in the stone towers. The photos in our album don't quite give Bayon the credit it deserves, and it truly is something you have to see to believe. We hope that you enjoy the photos we included, and that you are able to picture an immense structure with several tall towers jutting up towards the sky, each adorned with four faces which seem to be peering down at you.

Angkor Thom is the largest area of temples in Siem Reap, even larger than Angkor Wat, and there are several temple ruins within its walls as well as the old Khmer Royal Palace. We spent an hour walking around the grounds, admiring all of the sights. With such an early start, we thought the weather would be more bearable, but even at 8:00am, we were both drenched in sweat. The temperature must have risen to over 32 degrees Celsius by 8:00am and a hot day was in store for us.

Several other temples awaited us that day, and we were taken to each one of them by the friendly Mr. Seila. Another favourite temples of ours was Ta Phrom, which can be recognised from a few scenes in the movie "Laura Croft: Tomb Raider" with Angelina Jolie. For those of you who are familiar with Angelina Jolie's love of Cambodia and helping underprivileged children (by adopting a couple of them), it is easy to imagine that this was a result of her spending time in Cambodia making the film. It sounds like a reasonable explanation, anyway, since many of the children we saw were definitely lovable despite their poor and struggling lifestyles. Ta Phrom is a very unique temple, as it is a massively long temple dispersed with large trees, both alive and petrified, growing into the temple. At many points walking through the temple, we spotted huge roots growing into the temple walls and large trunks and branches reaching up to the sky from the top of the temple.

Seeing all of the temples outside Siem Reap in one day was our aim, so we had brought snacks with us to eat during the ride from temple to temple. We also wore our good hiking trainers (American friends and family reading this journal entry should know what these are from a previous journal entry in January) to allow us to climb up each temple quickly and walk around without worrying about stubbing our toes on stones jutting up from the paths. One thing we have both done a lot since the beginning of our trip on 3 January has been to kick rocks or concrete sticking up out of the paths on the sides of roads, and with a day of fast moving through the temple, we couldn't afford any bloody or hurt toes.

Moving so fast through all of the temples, we ended up surprising both ourselves and Mr. Seila when we finished seeing all of the temples before 2:00pm! After finishing, Mr. Seila took us on a very bumpy dirt road through a much poorer part of Siem Reap to visit the Landmine Museum. There, we were able to see many old pieces of artillery which were used by the US during the Vietnam War. Cambodians are still uncovering landmines today and, unfortunately, most of the time when a landmine is uncovered, it is when a Cambodian steps on one, losing many limbs or sight in the process, or even a life. The highest percentage of people uncovering these mines and becoming maimed in the process is of children, and hopefully the government will find better ways to eliminate these awful things, or control areas where people in Cambodia can travel or explore, until the areas are safe. 

We settled into The Rosy Guesthouse quite nicely and were quite sad to leave the place to move onto our next destination, Phnom Penh, but we had to keep moving in order to head towards Vietnam at the end of the month. We ended up booking a bus ticket to Cambodia's capital city with a company called Capitol Tour, which drops passengers off in the part of Phnom Penh where the guesthouse we had booked was located. The tickets only cost $3.75 each (£2) and were the lowest priced tickets of any tour company we saw. It was great that the price was so cheap, but the journey ended up being quite warm as the bus' air conditioning did not work all that well. You can read more about our suffering during the bus ride in our next journal entry, if you are into that sort of thing!