Siem Reap - Day 1

For this trip, we took morning flight again. The thing I like about morning flight is that you actually earn one day. You reach your destination before noon and ta-da, you have one extra day. Our flight was at 6.50am and we woke up at 3am because we needed to be at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan (TBS) by 4am. We usually take the bus at TBS to go to KLIA2 because it's cheap and it saves a lot of time. One way ticket costs RM10 and it takes only 45 minutes to reach KLIA2. Another thing is that TBS is very near to JH's house so it's more convenient for us. You can check out the bus schedule over here.

We paid RM748 in total for our return flight tickets and both of us shared a 20kg check-in baggage to and from Siem Reap. I've always had no problem when I travel with Air Asia but this time the auto seat assignment system assigned different seats for us even though we checked in at the exact same time. I guess Air Asia just wants to earn an extra RM6 from each of their passenger by assigning different seats for us so that we have no choice but to pay RM6 to select our seats.

Anyway, we reached KLIA2 at about 4.45am and we had our quick breakfast at McD after checking in our baggage. The flight to Siem Reap took exactly 2 hours so by the time we reached their airport, it was 7.50am local time. Siem Reap is one hour behind us by the way. The hotel we booked was Cheathata Angkor Hotel and the hotel provides free pick-up from the airport if you request for it when placing the booking. Both of us were too smart because we didn't request for that service. We had to take the airport taxi to our hotel which costs us US$7. Try multiplying it by 3.5 and see if it's expensive.

When we reached the hotel, we had issues again. We accidentally booked a single deluxe room instead of a double deluxe room because the pictures shown on Agoda for these two types of rooms are exactly the same. According to the staff of the hotel, it is the exact same room but they disallow two of us to check into that single room because of the extra pax. They wanted to charge us an extra US$20 per night. PER NIGHT. We were supposed to stay there for 4 nights. So yes an extra US$80. JH being JH, negotiated with them and he managed to seal the deal by just paying US$30 for a total of 4 nights. He never ceases to amaze me with his negotiation skill.

Cheathata Angkor is near to the airport (only 7.5km from the airport) and it takes about 15-20 minutes to reach the airport. It's just 2 streets away from Pub Street, Old Market and Angkor Night Market. Extremely near to all the places of attractions so it's really convenient. Cheathata Angkor Hotel has 2 buildings; 1 old and 1 new. We stayed at the new building because their daily buffet breakfast is served at their new building. Another thing is that they might give you a room without window/balcony. All you have to do is politely ask for a room with window/balcony and they'll gladly meet your needs. As usual, everything in the room can be used for free except for some soft drinks in the mini fridge.
 
The price of the food over there is not as cheap as Thailand. We spent US$5 for lunch on our first day.

Our lunch.

The cute boy at the stall.

Then the tuk-tuk driver took us to a few places after lunch. He wanted to charge us US$12 but we managed to bargain until US$10. My man is the king of negotiation so I leave all the bargaining to him. Haha.

The view on the way to Tonle Sap Lake.

 

 

 

I cannot help but to feel sorry for those children of Cambodia. They walked to school; some barefoot. Some of them had dirty uniforms on. It was so sad just looking at them. Sometimes I feel that the things that I learn when I travel to countries like that is more valuable as compared to when I visit advanced countries like Hong Kong, Korea etc. They reminded me to be grateful for what I have; to always be thankful.

The first place we went to is Tonle Sap Lake, which was a mistake. We just wanted to see how the floating market looks like without intending to buy the pass to get on the boat because the pass is way too expensive. The pass is US$20 per person and you can watch sunset on the boat, have some light snacks and drinks, and see the life of the people living at the floating village. We would love to do all of the above but we just didn't think that it was worth it.

 

Next, we went to the War Museum. The entrance fee per person was US$5 and there really wasn't much to see over there. You can see pictures of the landmine victims and also some other stuff. To be honest, it was a waste of money too.  

 

Our next stop was Angkor National Museum. We paid US$12 per person but it was really worth it. Sadly, we weren't allowed to bring in our cameras so no photos at all. There were 8 galleries in total. Before we started visiting those galleries, we headed to the briefing hall where we sat down and watched the introductory video of the museum. The first gallery that we visited was the Exclusive Gallery: 1000 Buddha Images, followed by the rest of the galleries. We spent about 2 hours at the museum because it was burning hot out there and we just wanted to spend some extra time in an air-conditioned room. Teehee. :D

We then headed to buy our Angkor Pass. They have 1 day pass for US$20, 3 days pass for US$40 and 7 days pass for US$60. We opted for the 1 day pass after much discussion. We bought the pass after 5pm so our pass wouldn't be activated until the next day and we were entitled to a FREE sunset on the very day. How exciting! By the way, you would have your picture taken at the ticket booth and your face would be on your Angkor Pass. Haha. I didn't manage to take a photo of my Angkor Pass though. :P

 

 

It was pretty cloudy that day so we couldn't see the sun setting. :( But then luck was on our side! Ta-da!

We were riding the tuk-tuk on our way back and the tuk-tuk driver just pulled over for us to take picture of the sunset. :) So mission still accomplished.

Us and the tuk-tuk drive, Mr. Saveon.

I highly recommend this guy if any of you plan to visit Siem Reap in the future. He can speak good English so there's no communication problem at all. His contact details are as follows:

Tel: (+855) 77 75 31 55

      (+855) 98 87 23 38

E-mail: donsaveon@gmail.com

He dropped us at Pub Street and we had our quick dinner before walking back to the hotel. We slept early because we had to wake up at 4am the next morning for sunrise. :)