My Cambodian trip lasted
for 4 days. 4 days of new experiences, places, people, culture and memories.
Little did I know of Cambodia before flying there. The only thing I heard was
about the mass killing in the past but this did not stop me from going there.
However, I did almost no research about the place, besides the temples before
heading there.
We flew there from KL on
the 6.50 am flight to Siem Reap and this gave me the opportunity to capture a
beautiful and amazing sunrise, the most beautiful one I have ever seen yet,
maybe because it was above the clouds. It was simply blissful. Made me think
that there is always hope around the corner, even if there are clouds
obstructing the view.
From the aerial view, I
could only spot greenery scattered by large brown patches when approaching the airport. We landed at a
rather modest and quiet airport, without the hustle and bustle of those big
airports.
The procedure to obtain
the visa was very quick and was available against a reasonable payment of 20
USD. Simcards could be purchased for a mere 1 USD before exiting the building. It
came with 200mb of data which is enough for me to keep in touch with my social
networks. Then we moved to our hotel by a taxi which cost $7. This is the
standard price to any area in the city centre, regardless of where your hotel
is situated.
We stayed over @ a
budget hotel which goes by the name of “Banyan Leaf Hotel”. It is small, but
nevertheless outpouring with warmth and love. That is one of the best welcomes
I received over at any hotel I stayed thus far. They gave us a welcoming drink
and let us check-in despite the check-in time was much later and gave us some
choices over the rooms. Thumbs up for the hotel boss, Mr Leak, who was more
than friendly to us. He started the hotel when he was 19 years, a real inspiration
of what you can achieve even if you can be very young. Here is a video of the
hotel which I made over the 2 days I was there.
After freshening up for
a while, we set off to discover Angkor Wat, the most famous and most visited
attraction of Siem Reap via our tuk-tuk which we hired for $12 for the whole of
the afternoon and evening.
There are numerous
temples in Siem Reap and many of them are quite close to each other. The
entrance ticket is $20 for one day and so it would be more cost-efficient if
you go there in the morning, though we went there at around 2pm. Also, with the
same ticket, you are eligible to visit all the temples in the Angkor Park.
3-day passes are also available at $40, amongst other options. If you are a
history/temples fanatic, go ahead, there are even 7-day passes. However,
personally for me, I am not so interested in temples and we actually got bored
after taking some nice pictures as all we could see, wherever we walked was a
pile of rocks. True it is that the architecture and the sights are amazing but
you will eventually get bored if you do not know how to appreciate temples. Moreover,
under the scorching sun, it gets even more tiring. Alternatively, you can choose to visit the temples by bike, it would be a lot faster than going by foot. Bikes can be ridden for as cheap as $1. Here are a few pictures of the temples:
A rule of thumb for
ladies, if you like to wear sleeveless tops, do bring a little cardigan to
cover up when visiting temples as they might not let you go in sleeveless at
certain places. After visiting Angkor, we went for a quick round around Bayon
temple before heading over to the famous sunrise/sunset spot, Phnom Bakheng. It
is a 30 min hike up hill. If you are looking to do timelapse photography, I
would recommend you to go earlier, at around 5pm so that you have time to scout
the place and secure a very nice place as the place gets crowded really
quickly. However, if you are looking for a romantic sunset, this would not be
the place. Instead, you can opt to go on a 2 VIP boat cruise by Tara Boat’s
cruise. Unfortunately, the day I was there, I was not able to take any
timelapse as the sky was way too cloudy but the view from the top is nice.
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