Siem Reap: the city life

Siem Reap


That Sunday morning at 7:30am, we left on the bus for the 5 hour ride to Siem Reap. Although we napped for most of the slightly bumpy ride, we also enjoyed checking out the country side, seeing swampy fields with Cambodian men and women working in them, as well as families lying in hammocks outside their homes. It was shocking to be driving through such a jungle environment in a 3rd world country. I enjoyed imagining how my life would be if I lived in one of these tree house type homes, surrounded by jungle, swamps and ponds and many palm trees and wild plant life/animals. Almost all of the homes were built on high stilts to avoid the flooding during the wet season (the summer). Our bus took a break midway for lunch at a local Cambodian restaurant. Keith and I ate veggies with rice and chicken. Yum!

Once we arrived to Siem Reap, we immediately noticed the difference in cities with Phnom Penh. This city was touristier and seemed to have more wealth from the main attraction, Angkor Wat. Conveniently, our driver from Phnom Penh had a close friend that also was a tuk-tuk driver and worked at a hotel as well. He picked us up where our bus dropped us off (which seemed to be in the middle of a poor neighborhood with stones and rocks all over the streets). Our new driver was super friendly and even knew more English. He brought us to the hotel that he worked at and right away we were happy with the selection. It had a fancy lobby with computers for the guests to use, it was right across the street from the pretty river that flowed through the city, was walking distance from all the restaurants, bars, markets, and entertainment, and had extremely helpful staff, plus the rooms were nice too. One staff member booked the Apsara dancing show for us that we went to later that night, he also gave us a map of the city and recommended some restaurants and markets for us to check out. Also, the staff let us keep our bags behind the front desk throughout the next day when we went to Angkor Wat (the next city over), even though we were already checked out of our room (most hotels did this for backpackers/ travelers which made it very nice to not have to drag our clothes everywhere).

Once we checked into our room, it was time to explore the city! We first walked around until we saw the first massage company and happily made our way in. Two women took care of us with a 1 hour full body massage and hot tea at the end…all for only $7! We couldn’t believe it! At home this would cost anywhere from $50-$150. They first started with a foot massage, then they asked us to change into these pj clothes, and then both Keith and I layed next to one another in this private room with curtains all around. It seemed like a couple’s massage…very cute that we got to lie next to each other. The two young women (maybe around our age?) gave us amazing massages! It was so relaxing and was a great experience! The slow and quiet Cambodian music in the background and the dim light added to the relaxation effect. I could get used to living this way…at least while we’re visiting all of SE Asia….more massages please!

After the massage, we continued to walk around the city and enjoyed looking at all the many things they were selling at the day market….clothing, hammocks, jewelry, bags, sculptures, crocodile skin wallets, belts, etc. We then went for an early dinner at the Butterfly Garden. I absolutely loved this place!! It was definitely my kind of style and again, a very relaxing environment. You walk into this huge outdoor butterfly garden which is surrounded by thin netting. There are beautiful flowers, ponds with fish, fountains and lovely butterflies flying around (but you have to be patient to see them). Some of the areas to sit at are comfy long couches. We sat in one of these and laid down, relaxing with a fruit smoothie and coconut drink until our food was served. Our food was also amazing!! We ate veggie spring rolls as an appetizer, then shared chicken curry with rice and a shrimp veggie lemon-flavored dish. I was in heaven the whole week with both Vietnamese and Cambodian food! So delicious!

After dinner, we continued to walk around the city and made our way to our Apsara dancing show at 7:30. The show was at a restaurant and it was filled with maybe around 200 tourists! Keith continued to enjoy food by grabbing a small dish at the buffet, while I talked to another traveler sitting next to us. She was visiting on a work trip and originally from South Africa, but now living in Australia. It was interesting hearing her experiences at Angkor Wat…she was there for 3 days, each day from sunrise to sunset! Wow! We both liked the Apsara dancing. It lasted for about 1 ½ hours and the dancers, both male and female, had pretty and fancy costumes, and made the dancing into what was similar to a musical. There were romantic and funny scenes and the dancing and music was very slow. They seemed to be dancing in slow motion. It was interesting and fun to watch.

After the show, Keith and I walked past a few huge and very expensive hotels, then saw a nice restaurant/bar to stop into. It was called The Crest, and was apparently voted the best restaurant in Cambodia. For this reason, we decided to see for ourselves. The restaurant (outdoors but with a fancy roof over our heads) had ponds and comfy cushions that you climbed up on and could lay or sit on with pillows and a small table, along with a silk cover above us. It was very romantic and maybe the picture can help explain if my explanation is unclear. We ordered chocolate ice-cream to share (their specialty), as well as a hazelnut mojito for me, and the drink of the year (won at a bartender contest in Cambodia) for Keith….it was a warm type of wine/hard liquor with a very very strong smell. He made a funny face each time he took a sip, because he couldn’t breeth in the strong smell; however, he couldn’t believe how amazingly smooth and delicious the drink was. I tried it too and agree. My mojito was just as delicious. The next bar was just as fun. We went to The Dead Fish tower. I think it was Keith’s all-time favorite bar. He even bought a shirt from there as a souvenir. We had heard about this bar when researching the area. It was known for it’s “live crocodiles”. Our server told us that originally the bar had 25 crocodiles, but since they are difficult and expensive to have, they now have 2. They were in an open little pond and we saw one in plain site (the other one was in another room). The scary thing was that there were about 4 or 5 levels….all thin, wooden floors that you had to be careful climbing up and there weren’t any railings on the different levels. Therefore, if you drank too much and took the stairs right by the crocodile pond, you could definitely call it a night! The chai teas here were amazing! We chilled for an hour or so, chatted with our server, and watched more Apsara dancing (they were on a tiny stage (literally a wooden plank) on the 2nd floor. Some of the tables were Asian style- on the floor with cushions for us to sit on (we chose these), while other tables were western-style. Great place! Would recommend it for anyone!

After this bar, we made our way to a Dr. Fish massage! For only $2.50 you get a refreshing Angkor beer, as well as get the chance to put your feet in a gigantic fish tank and sit and relax…while the little fish all nip at your feet to take off all the dead fish. I really enjoyed this experience! Not only were my feet extremely soft and smooth after the massage, but it felt good and tickled a little. We were able to stay as long as we wanted, so we chilled for a while and talked to a couple visiting from England. They had just come from Vietnam and offered some great advice to some of the cities we would soon be seeing. The final stop was to the Night Bazaar, which was a popular and huge night market. I bought a tank top to match a skirt I bought earlier that day, and then we made it back to our hotel to get some sleep before our busy day visiting all the temples at Angkor Wat.

Our adventures in Phnom Penh/ Cambodia!

Cambodia


Phnom Penh

What an amazing trip! In only 8 days, we were able to fit in traveling to two countries filled with numerous activities, adventures, meeting new friends, trying new delicious new foods and drinks, seeing beautiful architecture, pagodas, temples, art, dances, music, and learning about the culture and environment in both Cambodia and Vietnam.

Let’s start with our first stop to Phnom Penh in Cambodia….


From our lil island of Jeju, we first flew to Busan, South Korea on Thursday, the 21st. We stayed at a nice inexpensive hotel that had a steam room in the shower! Never have seen that before. Our next flight was early the next morning (which was out of about 11 flights for the whole trip!!! I’ll explain later…) for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We left at 8:30 am, then made a stop at noon in Bangkok, Thailand, had 6 hours to chill….had some delicious Thai food (coconut juice…picture; fresh veggies, shrimp and rice in a pineapple= delicious!...picture), took naps on each other’s shoulders, then boarded for our next 2 hr. flight to Cambodia.

We made it in at about 9pm and right away had a very kind young Cambodian driver at the airport take us in his “tuk tuk” to our hotel. A tuk tuk is a carriage pulled by a motorcycle. What a fun mode of transportation! Check out a picture of one in Siem Reap/Angkor Wat. So, as we were being driven to our hotel, the only problem was that the address was switched in numbers on their website, so our driver had a lot of trouble finding the hotel. Since we had a reservation, our driver made several stops to ask friends in the area for help. He was so kind and patient! Finally, he stopped at his friend’s hotel so that we could use his internet in order to look up the phone number on the website. After about 10 people had helped us find this hotel, we finally made it! We made sure to tip our driver well and also hired him to be our driver the next day to tour us around the city!

The people at our hotel were so cute since they had been waiting up for us outside and cheered when we finally arrived. Usually all businesses in both Cambodia and Vietnam close by 10 pm and people go to bed by this time and wake up very early, sometimes between 3am-6am. By the time we arrived, it was around 11pm, so we were very thankful for them to still be awake and have a positive attitude welcoming us to their country and telling us how they could help us the next day and telling us all about our room. Our room was very nice, minus a HUGE cockroach that I saw later that night. Keith fortunately caught it and crushed it after it flew around our room for a while. Besides that, we had hot water, our own bedroom and bathroom, a minibar, fridge and TV, and delicious breakfast in the morning.

After some eggs, toast and coffee in the morning, we headed out early at 7am to explore the city of Phnom Penh. Our driver first drove us to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This part of the tour was definitely the most heart-touching and shocking. It was the prison called S21 (Security office 21), which was the biggest in Kampuchea Democratic. Innocent victims were tortured in the classrooms, held in individual cells and the 2nd floor was used for mass detention. Several thousand victims of all different professions were imprisoned and exterminated with their wives and children. The museum had evidence of the cells, weapons of torture, documents, pictures of the victims and their clothes and belongings. The saddest part of the tour was when one older man came up to me and brought me to a picture of a group of 7 men. He was pointing to one man in specific. We read next to the picture (since he didn’t speak English) that these 7 were the only survivors out of over 2 thousand victims. And only 3 of these 7 were still alive. This man that was there with us was one of the survivors still living! I didn’t even know what to say! I ended up telling him thank you for being here to teach us and share his experience with us, as well as how brave and strong of a person he is. He probably did not understand this, but I’m pretty sure he understood how thankful we were for him by our expressions and by the girls next to us all crying. The survivor acted out and tried to explain with the help of another tour guide how he was tortured. They put his feet in a metal box with holes for his toes, and they used sharp tools on his toes, and burned them.

The whole tour was so unbelievably horrible to hear about and shocking to know that this occurred in the 1970’s…so recent. After walking around all the buildings and meeting that survivor, we left and met our driver back at our Tuk Tuk. We went next to the shooting range so Keith could have a little fun shooting a weapon. This is rare to find…one of the few countries that you can go to a shooting range and use the type of weapons that they had. The most expensive one was a bazooka! It cost $350, but looked insane in the video that we were shown. You are first driven to larger shooting field about 30 minutes away in order to use this weapon. Keith was tempted, but decided to go with a M60 machine gun. Check out the picture! He was able to shoot 50 shots for $80. It was fun to watch him but it was so loud in the room, although we did wear earplugs.

We then made a short visit to the Killing Fields. This was the location where thousands of dead bodies of all the victims were placed. Eventually the skulls and bones were stored in a tall pagoda and people come today to learn about the history of the Tuol Sleng Genocide, and to give blessings and offerings, such as flowers and incense. Another sad and disturbing thing that we experienced was meeting a young child peeking through the fence of a school that was literally right next the killing fields! How could they have put that school there! Geez. Well two boys were talking to tourists who were taking the path that led to the information building. Although the boys seemed interested in finding out the tourists names and where they are from, we ended up realizing they were being kind to then ask for money. They were tricking people and probably sneaking out of their school! It was sad, but throughout the day we did get used to seeing many beggars, from young children probably sent by their parents, to elders.

Next, we went to this park that had a big temple and neat architecture at the top of this hill. We saw tourists taking elephant rides, so many Cambodians selling things, some families just relaxing on the lawn, some praying to the Buddha in the temple and giving incents, a huge clock in the grass, and so many monkeys walking around the temple/park! They were adorable! It was so strange for me to see them not behind bars in a zoo, but just out in the open. They were pretty big too. One mommy was cuddling and feeding her baby with a baby bottle! Check out the picture!

Since it was around lunchtime, we headed to the popular day market area. It had anything from food and drinks, to bags, purses, clothes, souvenirs, jewelry, books, cds, dvds, hats, etc. There was a big fruit, veggie and fish/meat market. We looked around, and ended up buying a HUGE backpacking/ camping bag for only $25 (at home or in Korea it would have been about $150), for future traveling and camping trips in the summer. Lunch was delicious…only $3 and authentic Cambodian food….I ordered a seafood dish with rice and veggies. I don’t remember what Keith ordered but it was spicy and tasty he said. We both drank a water melon drink that was also delicious.

After looking around a little more at the market, which had insane bargains…and you could keep bargaining if you want, we then headed to the Grand Palace. It was beautiful and had many golden and colorful temples with amazing architecture, as well as pretty gardens and bushes, and also silver pagodas (similar to a temple). There was also an elephant sanctuary, which had hundreds of mini elephant sculptures. Elephants are the symbol of the Kingdom of Cambodia, of royal power, and peace, as well as blessings from heaven (also in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand).


After the Grand Palace, we drove by the Independent Monument and saw a glimpse of the Cambodia History Museum, which actually was a very, very beautiful building with amazing architecture. However, we were more concerned about doing activities and seeing the other main sites, rather than the museum. This ended the day’s tour, and we made it back to our apartment around 6pm. We took a 45 minute nap, then planned to go to dinner at a local restaurant around the corner with our new friend who worked at the hotel. He is a university student, studying political science, and hopes to one day improve the Cambodian government and policies. He is working at the hotel as a part-time job, and is about our age. So we all went out to dinner and the experience was amazing…he was very good at English so we learned so much about him and his life, along with his views on politics and about the culture and life in Cambodia.

We learned that only about 3 in 10 students go on to study at a university. He is the first one in his family to be at college, and therefore, feels like it is his responsibility to make a positive change for his country. He hopes to study more English and politics and is currently in a political group that’s main concern is to guarantee the Powers of the People. He also told us how as a child, he had to swim to school, and carry his books above his head so it wouldn’t be wet from the water. What an inspiring story of how he managed to pursue his education!

For dinner, he took us to a nice restaurant and for the first time I ate frog! I had no clue that this is common in the US, but Keith says he’s had it before. Well, ate a frog legs appetizer, then a soup/stew with tons of veggies, chicken, and fried bananas, along with a rice on the side, and then a sweet porridge dish for dessert. I also had a mango smoothie! Delicious. Fresh fruit smoothies and juices were very popular and inexpensive in Cambodia and Vietnam, so Keith and I had one pretty much every day!

After dinner, we all took a tuk tuk to the popular downtown city street, which was right along the river. The area had a popular Cambodian night market which was all lit up, with again, anything you could think of buying, as well as a band playing pop music, and food vendors. Down the street were tons of fancy restaurants and bars filled with foreigners! We stopped at one bar that was facing the river and had a few drinks, learning more from our new friend about Cambodian life. It was a wonderful night! We went to bed pretty early so that we could get up around 6am (Like most of our trip! Yikes! We were so productive, but I enjoyed it!), shower, and be picked up by our driver to take us to the bus company. We had a 5 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh through the country side, to Siem Reap, where we would be spending the next 2 days.