We flew to Tokyo, had some sushi in the airport, then continued to Bangkok, where we stayed one night at a hotel near the airport. The next morning we boarded our Bangkok Airways flight to our destination, Siem Reap Cambodia. It had been a long trek, so we were happy to arrive at the beautiful Sofitel Royal Angkor Resort. It was an oasis of luxury; a very nice place to return after long, hot days of sight seeing! There are walkways over manmade ponds, filled with water lilies and lotus flowers. The resort has a timeless feel, and really makes you feel as though you’re an adventurer, about to explore a new world.
We were just a 5 minute ride by tuk tuk to the middle of town, which cost $1 per person. Cambodia’s currency is the riel, but US dollars are more commonly used. Siem Reap is a relatively small city, easy to cover downtown on foot in a few hours. The most memorable things to do in Siem Reap are eat at the many great restaurants, get cheap but good massages, and shop at the big market called Psar Chaa. If haggling is your thing, there is plenty to haggle over at Psar Chaa!
However, most of our days there were spent touring the many temples of Angkor, the capitol of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer empire. We hired our own private tour guide with car so we could easily get around, know where to go, and know what we were looking at when we got there. And, the A/C in the car turned out to be a real necessity! It was very, very hot. The most famous of the temples is Angkor Wat. It was built from 1100 to 1175AD. Saying it was impressive is a big understatement. Back in the day it must have really been magnificent. One of the coolest parts is that there is a big swimming pool in it, no roof above, so that it could fill with rain water. I imagine bathing in that pool in the year 1175 would have made anyone feel close to the gods! All of the temples are so ornately carved as well, with statues, reliefs, writings… and it all has historical meaning. Some other amazing temples are Bayon (in the city of Angkor Thom), and Ta Prohm. Bayon has 216 huge, smiling faces. The heads face every angle and are always looking at you.Bayon was built between 1177 and 1230. Near Angkor Thom is the temple of Ta Prohm. It’s really cool because it is slowing being claimed by the forest, in a way that the forest seems to now be incorporated into the temple. It was built from the year 1186. Ta Prohm is the temple in the movie “Laura Croft – Tomb Raider”. The oldest temple we saw was Preah Ko, built from 875 to 893AD. It’s a bit different as it’s built out of sandstone. In all, I think we saw 7 or 8 temples. They truly are wonders of the world, and are on “The List”: the UNESCO World Heritage list. It’s a cool website: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list
After doing 3 days of temple tours, we headed south to a different kind of sight. A floating village called Chong Kneas on Tonlé Sap Lake. Getting there in the car was half the adventure. It’s a dirt road, and we were there during the rainy season. Somehow, we managed not to get stuck, but it was very slow going. The floating village is such a foreign sight, in every way, that you never would have guessed that people live in this way. It’s largely populated by Vietnamese immigrants. They live in makeshift houses that float on big barrels. The lake has many purposes for them: it provides fish, water for cooking, it serves as a bathtub, and yes… their toilet. There is a floating school, floating restaurant and shop (catering to the tourists)… we even saw pigs in a floating cage!
Before saying goodbye to SiemReap, we took one last leisurely walk around town and picked up few souvenirs. We came upon a small market selling food on the side of the street. In addition to fruit, they had 4 or 5 different kids of insects that the locals like to eat! Even our tour guide said they're tasty. The market was across the street from a city park with very well manicured grounds. We decided to walk through the park to check out the tropical flowers and trees. All at once, Andrew started screaming, ripped off his shirt and took off running. I didn’t realize what had happened until I saw insects chasing after him that looked like flying grasshoppers. Just as I noticed them, they did a U turn and came for me, stinging me on my face 3 or 4 times. One had gone down Andrew’s shirt! The stings hurt, a lot, and caused big red welts. We must have caused a commotion, as locals came running up to us to help. One man was putting some sort of oil on our bites, and another nice man carefully walked up to the tree we had been admiring to get our bags of souvenirs we dropped during the attack. We laugh about this today, but at the time we were a bit concerned. Could these insects be dangerous? We had a flight to catch in about 2 hours and didn’t want to have some reaction to them while in the air. So, we jumped in a tuk tuk back to the hotel. We were asking the hotel staff if the insects could be poisonous, but the language barrier was too significant, so they called us a doctor! The doctor came and very nicely explained to us in French that there are no dangerous insects in Cambodia, and we would be fine. That cost $50.
Getting attacked by Cambodian bugs was not a good way to end the first leg of our trip! We got our bags and jumped into a taxi to the airport, feeling a bit silly now and laughing at ourselves. It was time for the second leg of our trip; we were off to Koh Samui Thailand.
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