Siem Reap - Day 2 - 5

We woke up really early on our second day. 4am local time. We were with the same tuk-tuk driver for 2 days by the way. Mr Saveon was very punctual; he was waiting for us downstairs since 4.45am. A responsible tuk-tuk driver indeed.

We were wondering why Mr Saveon wore such a thick jacket but once he started riding, we immediately understood why. Haha. The weather in Cambodia in the morning is freezing cold especially when the wind blows against your face. We started shaking and almost froze to death. Imagine Genting Highlands without jacket on.

Anyways, we weren't the only ones who sacrificed a few hours of sleep for the sunrise. We were really surprised when we reached the entrance of Angkor Wat because the number of tourists there were countless.

Okay, enough talk. Let the magnificent pictures do the talking.

Panoramic view of Angkor Wat.

It was too cloudy that day so we couldn't see the sunrise. But seeing how the sky changed from pitch black to purple to orange to light pink and finally to sky blue was such an unforgettable experience. Definitely worth it.

We spent the entire day at Angkor Archaeological Park on the second day. The park opens from 5am until 6pm everyday. By the way, I'm still glad that we finally decided to buy the one day pass because it was boring looking at those stones after a while. My advice to you if you're planning to visit Angkor Wat anytime soon is to buy the one day pass (unless you want to understand the history of the entire park, don't buy the 3-day pass)

Angkor Wat behind me.

We covered Angkor Wat in the morning. Then head off to have our breakfast and continued our day with Angkor Thom i.e. Phimeanakas, Baphuon and Bayon. I know most of you are confused by now. When I did my research on this, I was extremely confused too. Haha. Let me show you the map.

Photo taken from Tourism Cambodia.

Phimeanakas, Baphuon and Bayon are part of Angkor Thom.

Phimeanakas

View from above - Baphuon

Steep stairs at Baphuon.

Bayon

 

After Angkor Thom, we stopped for lunch near Ta Prohm before visting Ta Prohm itself. 

Ta Prohm is popular after the release of the movie "Tomb Raider"

Last but not least, the one thing you have to do when you're there is to climb up Phnom Bakheng to see the sunset. JH didn't know that in order to see the sunset you literally have to hike up the hill. Haha. So he claimed that I didn't inform him beforehand. :P :P Anyways, we were there early so we had our heart-to-heart session while sitting on the floor, leaning against some stones with our shoes off. :) 

What could be better than to enjoy the sun setting with your dearest one?

Anyway, that wasn't the end of our day! Next on our itinerary was to have buffet dinner while watching the apsara dance. It's a kind of traditional dance by Cambodians. Did I mention that the food at the buffet suck? Buffet and the dance was US$12 per pax. Tuk-tuk service for the entire day was US$15 (after some serious negotiation. haha)

 

Sorry for the blur pictures. My camera died on me by the time I took the second picture.

Day 3

We had our breakfast at the hotel on the third day. (Sacrificed breakfast on the second day because of sunrise) Breakfast at the hotel was really nice too. After breakfast we head back to our room to rest. We then went to the Old Market to look around and JH bought a few things from there. We were told that Cambodia is famous for cheap massages (it's a scam, for real) so we dropped by at a massage parlor near our hotel for a full body massage. The service and skill was somehow disappointing. Even my yoga teacher could massage better than them. We paid US$5 each for 1 hour full body massage. So I have to say that it was a waste of money.

Then we went back to the hotel to take a shower before heading out for dinner. Dinner that night changed my entire perspective on Cambodian food. Haha. Yes, it was that good. The good thing is that it was our most delicious meal of the entire trip and the cheapest one too. We had our dinner at Steven Corner which was a few steps away from our hotel. We met a couple from Austria and we chatted for almost an hour plus before hugging each other goodbye! Really friendly people I must say.

I don't know what's the name of this dish but it was superb. Only US$1.50 for this.

After dinner, we walked to Pub Street to have a drink.

US$0.50 for the beer and US$1.25 for the Long Island. How cheap is that?

Day 4

We had breakfast at the hotel again but we decided to chill at the hotel after breakfast. They had this modem which was connected to the TV that gave us the access to various movies and dramas in the modem. Both of us being movie addicts, were so excited about it that we watched at least 3-4 movies before heading out for dinner. 

I insisted that we dined at Steven Corner again because I couldn't stop thinking of that plate of thick, flat, spicy noodle. Walked around Angkor Night Market (every stall sells the same thing like wth) after dinner. Then went for a 30 minutes food massage. JH's right arm was contaminated. HAHA. (inside joke) Went to Pub Street to chill again after that.

Day 5

There's actually no Day 5 because our flight was at 8 something in the morning. Took a random tuk-tuk from the hotel to the airport for US$5. Reached KL at 12 something in the afternoon. 

xxx

That's my entire trip! I would recommend you guys to visit Siem Reap at least once, just to see the Angkor Wat because it's really worth seeing. Another UNESCO heritage checked off my list! Hooray!

P.S. Can't wait for Bangkok in May. :)

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. :)

Siem Reap, Cambodia

I think I've been traveling a lot lately. I just came back from Cambodia on Monday so yes, this post will be all about my Cambodia trip. I didn't go to Pnom Penh, only Siem Reap. I think we both made a really huge mistake by deciding to visit Siem Reap for 5 days 4 nights. 4 days 3 nights would be sufficient, to be honest. This is going to be a brief post because I haven't transferred the photos from my camera to my phone so no photos (maybe just one or two) for now.

Weather
According to the tuk-tuk driver, January is their 'high season'. We traveled on the tuk-tuk at 5 in the morning (Cambodia is one hour behind Malaysia by the way) and it was freaking cold. Exactly like the weather in Genting and Cameron Highlands. The weather in the afternoon is the same as Malaysia's hot and humid weather. The air pollution there is quite bad too.

Currency
Cambodian Riel or USD is acceptable over there. USD1 is equivalent to 4000Riel.

Language
Most Cambodians know how to speak basic English. Even the poorest people over there know how to speak English. I'm truly amazed.

Food
By the end of the second day, I was pretty certain that the food sucks. But then I came across this stall near my hotel which served cheap and tasty food. That plate of thick mee hoon completely changed my view on Cambodian food. Haha.Yes, it was that tasty.

Honestly, I don't know what else to talk about Cambodia but one thing's for sure; you need to pay for everything. Anyway, I guess I'll just wait for my photos to be transferred from my camera before writing down my itinerary for the trip. :)

With love at the entrance of Angkor Archaeological Park. :)