September 29-October 3: Siem Reap, Cambodia

We arrived at the airport of Siem Reap and were quite surprised to find it new-looking and very pretty; very vacationy feeling. Our hotel had a free airport pick-up service, so they were waiting for us outside with Jeff’s name spelled very interestingly on a placard. They also had a free tuk tuk (rickshaw) to take us to the town center, so after getting settled into our room, we utilized that and went into town to see the night market. Downtown Siem Reap is nothing like we expected; we had heard that the poverty in Cambodia is just awful. Instead of the rundown, dirty town we expected, we found majorly posh streets, filled with beautiful architecture, clothing boutiques, candlelit restaurants and fun bars. It seemed kind of like downtown Palo Alto! We walked through the night market, which is just a tourist market, and found a tiki-looking bar where we got 50 cent pints. We explored a bit more and decided to get a “Dr. Fish Massage” for which there are signs everywhere. For two dollars, they offer you a beer and an hour long fish massage…where you put your feet into a big pool filled with goldfish-sized fish and they nibble on and eat all of your dead skin. And WHOA is it ticklish!!! It took us about 5 minutes just to get used to feeling and quit taking our feet out of the water or shaking the fish off. They also had a smaller tank with much larger fish, which kind of felt like someone was scratching at you with their fingernails. It was loads of fun and very different. That night we got a delicious steak dinner at a posh restaurant for about six dollars each. Hard to beat.

The next day we got on a tour to see the temples of Angkor Wat. It is an enormous complex with hundreds of beautiful stone temples ranging from the 1200’s to about the 1500’s. They were “lost” for a while and completely overgrown until French explorers looked for and found them in the 1700’s. We only had time (and energy) to see four temples, but they were all very different. My and Jeff’s favorite is still very much overgrown and has many trees growing out of the stones, wrapping themselves around the walls and stairs. It is very Indiana Jones-esque, and was even used in one of the Tomb Raider movies. All of the temples in the complex are just so amazing, and contain so much history. Sadly, the faces and heads of most of the buddhas are scratched off or completely missing because of the religiously (and otherwise) intolerant Khmer Rouge in the 70’s. There are also many bullet holes in the walls because the temples were used as hiding places. There is no way to adequately describe the temples, so just check out the pictures!


Angkor Wat












Monkey pigging out



We decided to take the next day off and just lounge, plan the next portions of our trip, and get massages. The massages were definitely not the best, but for three dollars it’s difficult to complain! As we were eating dinner, a tuk tuk driver (Mr. Happy) approached us asking if we wanted to go on a tour the following day. We did in fact want to go see several other sights, and he spoke great English, so we organized an intinerary, and he picked us up the next morning.

We first saw another temple which is much less visited than the main temples of Angkor Wat. It was small, but the detail was amazing and very well preserved. It was a very beautiful and elegant temple set in lovely Southeast Asian jungle. We next took a hike up to a waterfall, Preah Vihear, which, although touristy, had lovely images carved into the stone of the riverbed. The images have somehow not eroded, and some of them were carved into areas which seemed impossible to get to! It was a super cool place. Then we drove through tons of insanely beautiful, serene, and rural countryside. We saw many people working in rice paddies, grazing water buffalo, kids playing and bathing in small streams, and jungle-coated mountains. It was definitely some of the prettiest scenery I’ve ever seen. We finally arrived at a place called the “flooded forest,” which had sounded pretty cool. It’s a fishing village whose homes are built on stilts in the middle of the water. And, as the name suggests, there is also a forest with normal, large trees, but it is “flooded” up to the middle of the tree trunks. When we arrived we found out that we had to buy a ticket for a large boat to take us out to the village. We assumed it was going to be about $5 each. Nope. $20!! We were absolutely appalled. And we really couldn’t afford it anyway because we had already had to pay $20 for the entrance ticket for the Angkor Wat land and $15 for our guide. And considering we allotted $25 per day in Cambodia, we were a little over budget to say the least. The ticket man said you’re on the boat for about three hours, and we figured since we were already there, we might as well just bite the bullet and buy the stupid ticket. The village was definitely very cool. Families lived in large, one-room houses built on stilts, and each house has a little dock where they keep their canoe. They use the water for everything: fishing, washing, toilet, and drinking… The village was much, much larger than Jeff and I had expected. There were maybe 200 houses! We cruised through part of the village and were told we had to pay to get onto a small boat, so we could go through the flooded forest. Our guide said it would be two dollars each, but the small boat captain wanted four each! So lame. We refused to pay more than two each, and he caved. But we still had to paddle ourselves! What exactly were we paying for? Anyway, the flooded forest was extraordinary and very peaceful. We got back on the big boat, had a quick stop at an enormous lake, and saw fisherman with their catch for about two minutes…much different from the gross misrepresentation we were given about the flooded village. On our way back, the boat broke down and we had to walk the last part. Oh, and another boat had splashed me and I got that nasty fishing/washing/toilet water in my mouth. Jeff laughed at me. Our whole trip was about an hour and half…definitely not the three hours promised. We were pretty cranky about the whole situation and gave the ticket man a piece of our mind and demanded some money back. The moron said he couldn’t do it and just stared at us. Such a loser! We were furious but enjoyed the lovely scenery on the drive home.


The hike to Preah Vihear


The hike to Preah Vihear


Preah Vihear. Surprising how they have not been ruined over hundreds of years.






Floating forest village


Beautiful scenery

The next day we left Siem Reap and endured a fourteen and a half hour bus ride to Saigon. It was super tedious, but not as terrible as we were expecting (except for when a girl used the toilet and couldn’t get it to flush and let the aroma waft all throughout the bus). Our hotel was conveniently located a block away from where the bus let off, and we caught some quick z’s before leaving the following morning for Phu Quoc Island.