Literally minutes before hoping on the bus to Siem Reap, Jen and I were able to secure a guesthouse along with a pickup from the bus station. People were actually waiting in the bus while I sent the email. Oops. Good thing though because what should have only been a 4 hour bus ride ended up being closer to 7, bringing us to Siem Reap in the middle of the night. Upon arrival, getting off of the bus was nothing new. Swarms of hotel touts and tuk-tuk drivers crowded the bus door, all vying for our business. At this point in our trip, we expect this scene and we’ve even gotten used to it, but having to deal with it at night and in a new town can be kind of unsettling. For this reason, you can imagine how happy and relieved we were when we finally found our driver in the crowd and he quickly herded us to his ride. Maybe it was because we saw him as our “savior” of sorts at that moment, or simply because he was such a nice guy, but for whatever reason “Chad”, as the guesthouse had named him, would be a prominent figure in our time in Siem Reap.
After settling in at the Rosy Guesthouse, a quaint place run by a super friendly European couple (the guy’s name was “Smiley” and he totally suited his name), we decided to check out the guesthouse restaurant. The main (if not only) reason to come to Siem Reap is to check out the temples of Angkor, the ancient capital of the Khmer empire. Often referred to as the eighth wonder of the world (per LP), the temples of Angkor are best identified with Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world (per LP), but are in fact numerous temples covering a significant bit of ground. Enter “Chad”. Shortly after completing our meal, Chad approached our table and asked what we were planning on doing tomorrow, knowing of course that we would want to visit the temples. Well, for $15 a day Jen and I could have our own personal tuk-tuk complete with guide, Chad. For Jen and I, this was a blessing. Honestly, trying to read up on all the temples and coming up with a plan of attack was a daunting, if not impossible task. Based solely on the LP’s descriptions and suggested itinerary, we had sort of an idea but no plan really. But Chad, he brought to the table a detailed 3 day schedule that would show us the highlights. Done!
With our guide and ride in place, we set off the following day where our first stop would be Angkor Wat. I can’t speak for the both of us, but I was pretty excited as we approached in our tuk-tuk and when we finally saw the temple itself, I was blown away. I mean, I knew the temple was big but I didn’t realize just how big until I saw it. For the next couple of hours, Jen and I explored the temple grounds, constantly being amazed by the detail and craftsmanship on display. We finally returned to our tuk-tuk and just as quickly, we were off to the next site.
Before arriving in Siem Reap, I joked with Jen that all I wanted to see was the one temple, Angkor Wat and then we should get the heck out of there. 3 day pass? More like a one hour pass. Well, as we rode the tuk-tuk to our next destination, the thought of “I’m done, nothing more to see here.” kept popping in my head. Well thankfully I kept my mouth shut. As we rode from one temple to the next, it become quite clear that there was much more to see than simply Angkor Wat. Now I’m not going to say that every temple we visited that day blew me away but there were definitely some standouts. For me, Bayon at Angkor Thom, with it’s 200 + rock faces and Ta Prohm, where the roots of ancient trees strangle the stonework, were amazing to see. I really can’t do them justice so check out the photo gallery for pictures. There are many.
On the way back to our guesthouse, Chad asked us whether or not we wanted to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat the next day. That would mean being at the temple around 5 am and leaving the guesthouse thirty minutes earlier. Exhausted from the day and from the heat we thought it would be best to save our answer for later (because at that point it would’ve been “NO!”). Between the two of us, Jen loves sleeping much more than I do. Since we’ve been traveling, I usually wake up around 5:30 - 6:00 am everyday. Jen, closer to 8:30 unless we have somewhere to be or something to do. For those of you who have never had an early morning Jen experience, let me just say it can be interesting so when it comes to decisions involving early mornings, I usually let her decide. In this case, it was a no-brainer.
Finding ourselves in the tuk-tuk once again, but this time in the darkness of early morning, I kept having the thought that Jen and I would arrive at Angkor Wat and that we’d be 2 of but a handful of people taking in the sunrise. Don’t ask me why I thought this because only a day earlier the temple was packed. I guess it was more wishful thinking than anything and I quickly realized this when I saw 4 or 5 minibus tours pass us along the way. Regardless, the sunrise was amazing even if we did have to share it with a few hundred strangers. And because of our early start, many of the other temples that we saw that day were virtually empty. In all, we managed to fit in 6 temples before 1:00 p.m. and while there was definitely more to see, we were done for the day.
Feeling more lazy than actually tired, we took advantage of our room’s DVD player and the guesthouse’s extensive collection of movies. I was excited to see that they had “Slumdog Millionaire” as both Jen and I both wanted to see it. First off, I loved the movie. For those of you who have never seen the movie, it talks about child labor/slavery in India and shows how kids are taken, trained, and ultimately put on the street to collect money for these gangs. What saddened us more than the movie, was that Jen and I were seeing this everyday in Siem Reap. While exploring the sights at Angkor, there are two constants. The first is historical beauty and the second, unfortunately, is swarms of children who are either begging or selling. It really is sad to see these kids all programmed to say the same things over and over again. You want to give them money or buy something from them, but at the same time you know it’s more likely than not that very little if any of the money is going to benefit the kids. What makes it even tougher is that some of the kids are pretty good salespeople. Once they found out where we were from most of the kids would say, “Canada, prime minister Stephen Harper. Capital, Ottawa. Mister, you buy something?”. One of the kids even challenged me to a game of tic-tac-toe, where if I lost I would have to buy a book of postcards from him. Never being one to give up the chance to beat a kid at a kid’s game, I accepted and proceeded to lose royally. In my defense, I was hustled and while I didn’t end up buying anything from him, I did give him some riel that time.
While most of our days were spent temple hopping, we did manage to check out a bit of the town at night. While you would probably never come to Siem Reap for the city itself, it has some pretty nice areas. The main strip in the city definitely is “Pub Street” (the road’s actual name). During the day you probably wouldn’t even notice the street, but at night there’s no way you could miss it. Closed to cars and motorbikes at night, the street is lit up and buzzing with people, albeit mostly tourists. For this reason, some of the places are a bit overpriced but the couple of restaurants we tried out were both reasonably priced and very tasty. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have happy hour specials offering 2 for 1 cocktails and pints of Angkor Beer for 5000 riel (less than a dollar).
In total we spent 5 nights in Siem Reap, with nearly 3 full days of taking in the temples. Yup, we actually made it out for a third day but in hindsight two days was plenty for us. We actually ended up spending more time in the tuk-tuk than anywhere else on the 3rd day as the two temples that Chad took us to required 3 hours of travel there and back. There was a nice little hike involved though, which made it worthwhile.
Siem Reap was our last stop in Cambodia. It seemed we were always on the move in that country. We really didn’t settle in anywhere for an extended period of time. Not our usual pace. After 4 months of traveling where we really never rushed, we felt almost guilty to leave Cambodia after only 2 weeks. I guess the next logical question to ask is where were we rushing off to? Well, nowhere really. But with Africa looming in the next few weeks, I think Jen and I both wanted to get away from the backpacking life a bit, and have a chance to recharge our batteries. Next stop, our home away from home, Bangkok. I know it might not sound like a relaxing stop to most of you . . . . but you’ve never met Jen’s host family.
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