我的旅游日記: August 2011

If I were to describe this trip in one word, it would be awesome. Visiting a country with such an up and down history was really an eye-opener for me. I went with my classmate in NTU who really has a great interest in history. So, here is the story.

28 July

We took Jetstar flight direct to Siem Reap. The schedule is not very good for us, it flew at 2.55pm, so basically we lost half day there. We booked a double room in Rosy Guesthouse and they provided us free airport pickup by a tuktuk. The guesthouse is clean and simple, location is good as well. We also booked a van from a driver recommended by our friends for the entire stay in Siem Reap for USD90.

The driver picked us up at the hostel at 5pm and we went to the Old Market of Siem Reap. There are lots of stuffs there, bargaining is a must. USD is really widely accepted in Cambodia and I saw people even use USD more often than their own currency.

It was raining afterwards and the electricity went off. So we had dinner at some small restaurants with no electricity. We also tried Angkor Beer for 50 cents/can.

29 July

The driver picked us up at the hostel at 8am in the morning, he's so kind to bring us to a local food stall to try local Cambodian breakfast. It was the best food we tried there, quite similar to Vietnamese pho.

Best food

Our first stop for the day was Tonle Sap lake. The boat tickets cost us USD15/person. We took boat along the river and ended in Tonle Sap Lake. This is where all the poor people and refugees are staying on the boat floating on the water, the so-called Floating-Village. Their living condition is so poor that they don't even have proper house. The boat trip took around one hour. Tonle Sap in Khmer language means fresh water lake.

Floating Village at Tonle Sap

From Tonle Sap, we proceeded to visit temples. We started from the South Gate of Angkor Thom and the Bayon. It again took around 1 hour plus to walk around the Bayon.

South Gate of Angkor Thom

The Bayon

We had no choice but to have lunch at Angkor complex. It's an OK food for tourist price. After lunch we directly go to our main destination, the mighty Angkor Wat. It was really a huge temple, built in the 12th century. There is a long walk to do here. I love the view of Angkor Wat with reflection of it on the water. We have to spare 3 hours to walk around the temple.

Angkor Wat Gate

Love this view a lot

The sky was cloudy but we decided we wanted to try our luck for sunset. We went to Pnomh Bakheng Hill and it was raining when we reached there. The stairs up there is very steep and small that people have to use both legs and hands to climb.

We closed our day by having a buffet lunch at Koulen II restaurant with Apsara Dance performance. It was really a touristic place. But since we had nothing else to do, we decided to give it a try. The buffet cost us USD12/person.

30 July

We woke up at 4am in the morning in the hope of seeing sunrise at Angkor Wat, just to find out it was raining heavily outside. So plan was changed, we went out again at 8am in the morning for Kbal Spean and Banteay Srei. Our driver again brought us to a local stall to try another Cambodian food.

It took around one hour to reach Kbal Spean. There is 1.5 km trekking to be done in Kbal Spean to reach the river where all the carvings are. Part of the trek is quite difficult, however we managed to climb up and down. There is a waterfall also down there and the water in the river is clean. I saw some travellers tried to bath there.

The Carvings

Kbal Spean River

Kbal Spean Waterfall

On the way back, we visited Banteay Srei. It's a Hindu temple older than Angkor Wat. The stone that was used to build Banteay Srei is different from Angkor Wat's stone. It was brown colour and the carvings are more detail in Banteay Srei.

Banteay Srei, different style from Angkor Complex

We also visited Cambodia Landmine Museum in Siem Reap, it was founded by Aki Ra, former Khmer Rouge soldier who later became a deminer. The museum has lots of collection of demined landmine, from small to big as well as some bullets used in the war.

31 July

Left with half day today, we went out at 5am to Angkor Wat to try for sunrise, but again unfortunately, the sky was cloudy, we can't see any sunrise. However, the good thing is we started the day very early. We visited basically the Angkor Thom complex and Ta Phrom which was once used to shoot movie Tomb Raider.

Cloudy dawn at Angkor Wat

Starting with Ta Phrom, it was a very old temples, more damaged than other temples. Lots of old trees squeezed the temples, which make the main attraction of the temple. Then we proceeded to Ba Phuon temple which was part of Angkor Thom, Elephant terrace and Terrace of Leper King. It was raining again so we had to end the day, went for lunch and moved to airport to fly home.