In planning this trip I had a lot of people ask me why we were going to Cambodia...well the answer was simply “Angkor Wat”, which I had never heard of before planning this trip and after seeing it I am amazed I didn’t know a thing about this place before. It is one of the great man-made wonders of the world and why more Westerners aren’t aware of its existence is unclear and surprising.
That said, this is quickly becoming becoming a hot-spot for tourism and the town of Siem Reap, which holds the Angkor temples, is a rapidly booming resort community with Western restaurants, bars, and up (UP!) scale hotels going up all over. Progress like this can be upsetting with fears that a Starbucks will invade what was once – or still is – a unique culture and sacred sites, but frankly as this is THE spot for tourism in Cambodia (and tourism being one of the only industries surviving in Cambodia) you have to look at this boom as a positive thing for the people here.
All that said I am really glad to have seen it now before this place becomes Disneyland...
We took a 2 hour flight directly to Siem Reap’s teeny airport on a puddle-jumper plane, and then grabbed a car to our super-cute (and cheap!) hotel, the Royal Crown Hotel which sits in the center of Old Market (the small “downtown” area of Siem Reap).
We got an early start the next day hiring a tuk-tuk and driver for $15 for the day – a really kind local man who drove us up to the main temple, Angkor Wat, and then drove us around to each of the other temples we wanted to see all day.
Its really hard to do any justice to these sites in words or even pictures – all I can really say is I have never seen anything like this in my life and I would encourage anyone and EVRYONE to take this trip for themselves. You could spend days touring all of the temples – the major ones and the outlying ones which are less popular yet sometimes better b/c there are far less people there. Here are a few photos and spots we hit over the course of the first day:
Bayon Temple:
"Cambodian Squirrel" - monkeys just roam the temples, its hysterical
These temples are active so monks are a frequesnt sight
This picture doesn't do justice to how freaking HIGH UP these temples go or how steep and tiny these stairs are
Kids are all over the temple sites, most selling cards and bracelets and just breaking your heart along the way, and some are just playing around in the temples themselves
Mike and the Elephant
And this one is for my Mom:
After a full day of touring we made our way back into the Old Market for dinner at a French place I’d spotted (being a tourist town, much of the food here is very Western-friendly or at least familiar and while I didn’t want to bypass the local culture by tasting some genuine Khmer food, Beijing scared me so much that I’ve become a little jaded and have opted for familiar looking meals whenever possible!).
Some weird coconut-fish thing Mike got for dinner - which was so good! Who knew?
After a long day of temple touring this is a must:
