Cambodia: Weekend trip to Siem Reap

We were woken from our very brief slumber. I grabbed the bag that contained my sandals and stumbled down the bus stairs desperately trying to open my eyes. My eyes were bloodshot and I managed to half strap on my sandals. When we exited the bus, we were greeted by a million tuk tuk drivers pulling at our sleeves and yelling at us “Where you go” and “I take you to hotel”. I swatted the air like I was swatting bugs trying to clear a path for us to grab our bag. I could barely see where they were throwing our bags on the ground from the bus compartment. After picking up our bag, we tried to figure out where the heck the bus had dropped us off. The first tuk tuk driver we approached tried to tell us that our hostel was in a different town. We quickly ditched him and found another that claimed he knew where we needed to go.   We negotiated a price of $4 USD and fell into his tuk tuk. The sun was just rising and the air was cool and crisp which is in stark contrast to Phnom Penh where it never dips below 70 degrees even at night. It was 5:30 am and we had just arrived via the night bus with very little shut eye due to the extremely rough roads. The bus takes 7 hrs and covers a mere 300 km. We were happy to have finally made it to Siem Reap- the famous town of ancient temples, dating back to the 8th century.

After a 15 min ride we were at the hostel that we had booked. Nobody was up at the property. We noticed that there was someone sleeping behind the reception desk (that was outside) along with a baby. Strange but we let them sleep a little bit then found someone else that worked there. He checked us in and showed us to our room. We walked in and were hit with a strong stench of mildew and several roaches on the floor. We examined the sheets and they were filthy. We had reserved the room online and somehow this place had decent ratings – how was this possible? True it was only $12 per night but this was not going to work. I grabbed the guy and let him know that we would only stay here if he cleaned the room like crazy during the day. As it would turn out they would ‘clean’ the room but we found more roaches in the room when we returned so we decided to find another place to stay. We found a new place nearby that was much nicer and ended up being even cheaper ($10 usd).

Shortly after our arrival our friend Rena (from our house in Phnom Penh) arrived, as did our driver for the weekend, Mr. Long. I had read rave reviews on Trip Advisor of Mr Long and was impressed with the email communications we’d had. He developed a full 2 day agenda for us of the best temples to go to in the Siem Reap area. It can be very overwhelming visiting Siem Reap because there are literally hundreds of temples in the area. Since we only had 2 days, we wanted to hit all the highlights.  He arrived at 7 am sharp, and off we went. He was a life saver for us in our quick weekend visit and did many nice things to make our trip more enjoyable such as dropping us off at one entrance of a temple and picking us up at the far other side so we didn’t have to backtrack.

Every temple we saw was unique and breathtaking.  It was a great change of pace from the chaotic city grind of Phnom Penh.

Day 1: 

Pre Rup Temple

Beanteay Srei Temple

Thommanon Temple

Ta Prohm Temple (Tomb Raider)

 Ta Keo Temple (Sun Temple)

Bayon Temple

Angkor Wat 

Day 2

The next day came and we decided to give the temples a rest in the morning and visit another local attraction, the floating villages.  There were a few nearby that are very famous.  Our driver decided to take us to one with a more local feel to it.  We ended up driving down an extremely bumpy road for about 45 mins until we couldn’t drive any further, then loaded into a private boat to head to the village by water.  The driver took us down the river, all throughout the village, which was spectacular to see up close and personal.  It was amazing how these people live.  The water in the river vary by as much as 30-40 feet depending on what time of year it is:  dry or rainy season.  We happened to be there during dry season, so the water was much lower than it can be at other times of the year.  You could see what a range it must be, by how high the houses sat above the waterline to protect them during the rainy season when it’s raging much higher.  The river is the lifeblood for these people. There are nets everywhere where they fish to provide the village with food, and industry.  They buy other local produce onboard their smaller boats, and bathe in the waters.  We loved passing through the village watching locals go about their daily lives, while sitting out in the hot Cambodian sun on the front of our boat.  After the floating village, we had a few other even older temples to visit to conclude our epic weekend.

Tonle Sap lake (Kompoung Pluk) Floating Village

The Roluos Group Temples: Lolei, Preash Ko, and Bakong