Day One
When we arrived at the airport in Siem Reap, I was immediately impressed with the country of Cambodia. Our immigration officer was actually cheerful and it was great to find out that USD were accepted everywhere.
We were picked up from the airport for free by a tuk tuk from our hostel, the Siem Reap Hostel. It had a nice location near downtown and a good social atmosphere. We arrived well before check-in so Nico and I decided to store our bags and get some laundry done next door.
After dropping our clothes off, we went to get breakfast at a TripAdvisor reviewed cafe, Joe to Go. Nico ordered a breakfast burrito with a mango avocado smoothie and I got a chocolate chip pancake with a cookie chip smoothie. Nico's breakfast burrito was very good. He also loved his smoothie. I really liked the cookie chip smoothie. The pancake was too thick in my opinion but it came with real maple syrup.
After breakfast, we walked around the market for a little bit. It was too hot, however, and we chose to go back to the hostel and nap by the pool instead.
After relaxing, we headed out for lunch. We went to a restaurant called Love U and ordered a Cambodian dish called chicken amok. It was pretty tasty and consisted of minced chicken and spices served in a banana leaf. It tasted a lot like curry (though not soupy).
After lunch, we headed back to Joe to Go to get piña coladas (for only $2). Then, we went back to the hostel to check into our room and book tours. Booking an Ankgor Wat tour was actually just as simple as writing our names on a board. With everything booked, Nico and I took showers and then headed down to the hostel bar for happy hour, where draft beer was only $0.50. At the bar, we met the friendly owners of our hostel who were expats from Australia. We drank a couple of beers and got to know them and then headed out to Pub Street for some food and more drinks.
We went to a tapas bar called Picasso located down an alleyway just off the main street. I was looking forward to trying a sangria but when we arrived, the owner told us they weren't selling drinks because ~someone~ was coming to town tomorrow. I didn't quite understand but Nico and I decided to stay for a few tapas. The couple sitting across the bar from us recommended this cheesy onion dip tapa, which was delicious and tasted like French onion soup. We also ordered a chorizo tapa and played a game of Jenga with another couple at the bar.
After that, we decided to head back to the hostel since we had booked the sunrise tour for tomorrow morning.
Day Two
Our alarms went off at 4 am and we silently got dressed and headed downstairs for our Angkor Wat tour. We shared a tuk-tuk with another couple from our hostel who had already done a tour of some of the lesser known temples the previous day, so they didn't need to stop at the ticket office on the way there.
Nico and I got out of the tuk-tuk and headed to the ticket office. People were already in line waiting even though they weren't selling tickets yet. We joined behind and waited but nothing happened until 5. The line slowly started to move forward as tickets were printed and sold. When we finally got our tickets, we ran back towards our tuk-tuk just as the sun had started to creep above the horizon.
Our tuk-tuk zoomed off in the direction of Angkor Wat and when we arrived, the sky was light but the sun wasn't completely up yet. We walked across the vast landscape, arriving at the picturesque spot a little too late. The sky behind the temple wasn't orange like I had expected. The lighting however, was still beautiful. Pink clouds floated in the sky and, best of all, it wasn't hot yet.
After walking around Angkor Wat for a little while, we started to get hungry. At that moment, a Cambodian boy called "Spiderman" approached us and told us to come to his food stall. So, we slowly made our way in that direction and Spiderman stayed close by to make sure that we'd actually go with him (and not to a competing stall). When we arrived at his stall, he ushered us with menus towards a plastic table but, thinking we'd rather order food that we could take with us, we walked over to the counter. We bought some Pringles and a couple of apples and went to go find somewhere to sit with a view of Angkor Wat. I was so tired, I fell asleep leaning against an ancient pillar.
It eventually came time to meet up again at our tuk-tuk and we rode off to the next temple, Bayon. Bayon had two stories for us to explore. The most distinguishing feature of the temple were the giant carvings of heads all around the top pillars. The carvings were intended to be the faces of different gods, but actually showed more resemblance to the face of the king in power at the time the temple was built.
The next temple we visited was Ta Prohm, famous for being in the movie Tomb Raider and for being overgrown with trees. Our driver dropped us off, explained how to walk to the temple, and told us to meet him in an hour.
Ta Prohm was my favorite temple of the three. I loved the way it looked overcome by nature. As we walked around, we found the carving of what some believe to be a stegosaurus. It's still not known what the carving really is or how it got there. Some think it was carved by one of the Tomb Raider producers as a joke, some think it's a cow or other animal, and others think it's proof that dinosaurs and humans lived on Earth at the same time. Looking at the carving, I thought it really did resemble a stegosaurus. I'm going with the idea that a movie producer put it there.
After walking around and taking lots of pictures, we decided it was probably time to go but neither of us had really paid attention to the time when we'd started. We walked back to the road but our hostel friends and tuk-tuk driver weren't there yet so we assumed we were early and began to wait.
After waiting a while, we began to wonder if maybe we were supposed to be picked up somewhere else. Nico thought he'd heard the driver say something about meeting on the other side or the temple. So we decided that I would stay put and Nico would walk to the other side to see if they were there.
As I waited, I noticed other tuk-tuk drivers explain to their passengers that they were currently located on the west side of the temple but would be picked up on the east side, just straight across. I immediately knew that I was in the wrong place but decided to stay put, not wanting to miss the rest of my group if they came around for me.
Finally, the tuk-tuk came around. I apologized for not paying enough attention and we headed back to the hostel.
Feeling a bit hungry, Nico and I decided to get lunch. We went to a place called Pot & Pan, which I didn't really like. I ordered teriyaki chicken, which was fatty and didn't really taste like teriyaki. We stopped at Joe to Go on the way back to the hostel and I got a cookie chip smoothie togo.
That afternoon, we lounged around the pool for a little bit and then went up to our room to take a nap. When we woke up later, it was time for happy hour so we went down to the bar. We talked to the hostel owners and a group of guys who had just arrived in Siem Reap. They were planning on going to the night market and out to get happy pizza after so we decided to join.
We went to a place called Happy Angkor Pizza. Nico and I weren't too hungry so we split a small pepperoni pizza. After that, we split off from the rest of the guys and went back to the hostel to watch Tomb Raider, which was playing in the cinema.
Day Three
Nico and I went to Joe to Go again for breakfast. This time I had a breakfast burrito and Nico had hashbrowns with an egg.
After breakfast, we walked around the market for a little and explored some of the alleys around pub street. In the afternoon, we hung out around the pool and enjoyed tea time at 4. After that, I showered and went to happy hour at 5. We met up with the group of guys we'd hung out with the previous night. They had gone to see the temples today and just got back.
We had a few drinks at the hostel bar and then decided to go out. Nico and I heard of a bar called Miss Wongs so we decided to try it. It was a bit on the expensive side for Cambodia but it was very good. I had a Moscow mule to drink and a 'pork bun' slider.
After that, we walked around Pub Street and stopped at a backpacker bar called Angkor What? I was feeling like I'd had enough to drink after that so we all just headed back to the hostel and went to sleep.
Day Four
When Nico and I woke up, we decided to make one last stop to Joe to Go. This time, we both had the hashbrowns and I had a cookie chip shake.
After breakfast, we hung out at the pool until it was time to leave. We took a tuk-tuk to the airport and then boarded our flight to Singapore.
Video
#siemreap #cambodia #angkorwat #joetogo #loveu #pubstreet #picasso #asia #bayon #taprohm #tombraider #happyangkorpizza #misswongs #angkorwhat #video
Комментарии