Siem Reap, Cambodia

According to Travel.State.Gov:  "You will need a valid passport and a Cambodian visa to enter Cambodia. Tourist and business visas are valid for one month from the date of entry into Cambodia. Cambodia offers on-line visa processing." "Tourists and business travelers may also obtain a Cambodian visa at the airports in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and at all major border crossings."  For more information, check out their web site here. http://www.tourismcambodia.com/tripplanner/essential-information/visa-passport.htm

 

We arrived in the Siem Reap airport and breezed through immigrations.  The cost was $30 and we needed 2 passport sized photos.  You will get a visa in your passport but you need to hold on to your entry/exit ticket, like most of our stops in SE Asia.  It's best to just keep it in your passport.  They only take USD, so be sure to get some in advance.   

 

 

We immediately noticed a difference in the weather, Cambodia was much hotter and more humid than Bangkok. We took a tuk tuk to our hotel for about $7. It was more comfortable than the ones in Thailand because you weren't leaning back, and you could see out. A funny thing about Cambodia, everything was priced in dollars.  It's the first time in almost 3 years that I've actually used dollars and it seemed almost a foreign currency to me.  

 

Our guest house was right next to a huge market, yea, I'm totally in love with these markets!  It was pretty much like we'd seen in Thailand with lots of elephant pants, skirts, and loose fitting tops and food. We did see a couple of massage places that included fish nibbling on your feet, which of course we had to do.  We started out with fish the size of guppies and you could barely feel them. We moved on to the medium sized ones and definitely noticed a difference, with gentle little nibbles.  We finally graduated to the big fish and I couldn't even keep my feet in the water! When I say big, think 4 - 6 inch long gold fish. It was a very odd sensation as you could really feel them nibbling. Not that it hurt, it just felt weird, no other word would describe it. When we couldn't take it anymore, we moved over to the foot massage chairs where we got a wonderful massage by blind people, all for about $10

Since Caron was doing all the logistics of this trip - planning the itinerary, booking the flights and hotels, I decided to treat her to an adventure; a cooking class and zip line package with https://angkorzipline.com/.  We were picked up at our hotel and taken to a fancy resort on the other side of town. From there the chef took us to the local food market for the ingredients we would use.  Back at the resort, our class was set up outside in a beautiful corner by the pool, under some trees. There was a long table with cooking places and the ingredients were in beautiful baskets. We quickly got down to business and begin chopping the vegetables while our chef explained what we were doing. We made three dishes, one of which was fish amok. It's basically like a fish quiche; we mixed the ingredients and poured it into a basket made from banana leaves, We put them in a steamer to cook and moved on to a chicken vegetable stir fry. We used more sliced ginger than I would ever use but it was absolutely fantastic. Our third dish were fresh summer rolls. We sat at a table under the trees and ate our fabulous meal. We were stuffed but it was amazing. Our chef was wonderful and a lot of fun. 
 

We had about an hour for our food to digest before a tuk tuk picked us up and took us to our jungle zip line adventure, where we met the other people who would be joining us. As expected it was a very fun group, two girls from Australia, two Brits living in Scotland and an Irish couple.  As we were putting our gear on we noticed some monkeys hanging around the pavilion.  Apparently it was a family with the mother, a teenager, and a baby. The father was nearby and we were warned not to get close to him as he was quite aggressive in protecting his family.  

 

 

The course consisted of 10 different zip lines. You climbed a few flights of stairs to the first station, zip lined to another tree, climb - zip line, climb - zip line.  It seemed like we climbed higher and higher, but the zipping was more straight across. We finally got to the highest point and were rewarded with a longer ride down.  Almost everyone tried to do something silly, like air dancing, but we only ended up spinning ourselves around and coming in backward. That left the poor guide to catch each and every one of us.  Normally, as you come in you slow down and are able to land on your feet.  We also crossed 3 wooden sky bridges that were a little scary for some because they swayed back and forth, or bounced up and down, or both. I had previously zip lined in the jungles of Costa Rica and St Maartin.  I will admit to liking those jungles better, they just seemed more lush and green. In Cambodia, the forest was more dry and scrubby, although it was plenty hot and humid, especially trying to climb the steep stairs.  Our guides were amazing; safety was their number one priority, but they joked around and put everyone at ease. Everybody helped out and cheered each other on. It was an great experience that I got to share with Caron; I'm sure it's the first of many wonderful memories from this trip.

 

On Thursday we did a private tuk tuk tour of the most famous site in Siam Reap - Angkor Wat. I've never really had a private tour and wasn't sure I would like it but it was wonderful. We went through 

https://www.toursbylocals.com and our guide was Chheuy Haklao or Lao.  Lao was an interesting young man.  He came to Siam Reap as a child, to get an education.  His village is 5 hours away, so he lived in the monastery with the monks and was looked down on by other children as a temple boy.  He's now in college, getting a degree in business, tourism and computer science.  Lao was very passionate about Cambodia as he talked about it's history and it's prospects for the future. Of course as a licensed tour guide he was very knowledgeable about the temples as well, but he made the facts interesting and fun, and was just generally a fun young man to spend our day with. We saw several other temples including the one used in Tomb Raiders, with trees growing out of it.  While they were all beautiful, they looked pretty much the same. They are remarkably well preserved considering how old they are.

 

Angkor Wat is a huge temple complex, in fact, the largest religious monument in the world at 402 acres.  According to Wikipedia, (and I'm sure Lao told us) it was originally a Hindu temple of the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire. Towards the end of the 12th century it gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple.  This Wat looked like all the other temples we saw, in terms of architecture.  I usually look to Wikipedia or other sources for help describing something, but this time, it's just too complex.  Terms like ogival, redented towers, devatas, apsaras and bas reliefs are really no help, so you'll just have to look at the pictures.  Of note though, were the thousands of carving in the sandstone, depicting life at the time, great battles, tragic deaths, heaven and hell.  A typical story showed a line of people headed to the market.  They were carrying goods such as food, weapons, tools etc, to be sold or bartered for.  One lady was carrying a basket of live turtles. One reached out and nipped the bum of the man in front, carrying tools over his shoulder.  The expression on his face depicted pain and surprise at the bite, while her expression showed surprise and mortification.  The carvings were so detailed you could almost see the event happening.    

 

There were many other tourists around and as usual some were more rude than others. At one point I was trying to take a photograph and a woman stepped directly in front of me so that my camera lens was filled with nothing but her hat. I reached out and tapped her on the head; she got the message and moved LOL.  Not five minutes later the same group stopped at the next photo spot. This time we were in a very narrow space and they couldn't get in front of me. I am not kidding when I say one woman put both hands on me and tried to literally push me out of the way. As you can imagine that did not go well. For one thing I'm twice her size, both in weight and height. No way was I moving!  It did make me thankful that for once, Americans were not the rudest tourists.  

 

I previously mentioned the elephant pants.  It seemed like every other tourist was wearing them.  They're very lose fitting long pants, made of thin material, and of course have elephants on them. You need long pants to go in the temples and these are perfect because they're cool and very cheap. Of course I bought several pairs and loved them. For those who don't know me, I'm pretty pudgy, especially my backside.  Well, towards the end of the day, I noticed a small tear in the inseam of my brand new pants.  No worries, I'll just be sure to keep my legs together so no one notices.  We made a few more stops, the last was a crowded square in the center of town to look at a tree with bats in it.  I grabbed my camera and spent a good 10 minutes, walking among the crowd, taking pictures.  My computer had died a few days before and Lao offered to take a look at it.  When we got back to the hotel, he followed me in and waited while I ran upstairs to grab it. When I got to my room, much to my horror, I realized the entire seat of my pants had ripped. Not just the seam, but all across the back.  And not just a tiny tear, rather my whole backside was exposed.  That poor boy saw way more then he wanted, watching me walk up those stairs, not to mention who knows how many people back at the square.  Note to self, throw all elephant pants away immediately, not for fat people.  

Lao was able to get my computer up and running again, long enough to copy some irreplaceable photographs.  I'll need a new one though, his fix was only temporary and the laptop completely died soon after.  I could not believe he refused all payment.   

 

I liked Cambodia much more than I thought I would, and wish I had time to visit more places.  Like everywhere we visited, the people were so warm and friendly.  Everything was very cheap, the food was excellent and at least the people who came in contact with the tourists, spoke pretty good English.  

 

Next stop Vietnam 

 

Link to photographs:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/vFL5ufBBh4uH5vC72

 

Link to Caron's travel business: https://caronguillotravel.com/