Siem Reap

Siem Reap and the Ancient Sites

Kate and I spent a couple of days in Siem Reap, Cambodia in February, 2017 after visiting with Paul and El in Songkhla Thailand. We arrived on the 13th and met up with our Mekong river tour on the 16th.

If you are interested we have a photo album of our few days visiting the city and the historical sites.

But first we have an interesting story about our arrival at the Siem Reap airport. You need to queue up and get an entry visa at the airport - it's pro-forma process but has to be done. In the line behind us was a young English woman and behind her a middle aged American. Of course the conversation ends up on Donald Trump (what new crazy thing has he done today) and the American starts to regale the English woman with how great the Donald is, and how he'll make America great again, and how he had won with the largest electoral majority ever (I recall him saying that over 80% voted for the Donald -- which is just a ridiculous bold faced lie). Kate and I over hear all of this and are rolling our eyes at one another when he tells the English woman that the Donald is against abortion and he'd vote for him on that alone. Now, how could any male in their right mind ever say that to a young woman? You don't have a right to choose what happens to your body! It really blew our minds. He's sees we're reacting and tries to engage us in conversation on his side of things. He sees Kate is wearing a T-shirt from the Niagara Wine region which has a slogan "Winning the war on terroir" (that's terroir as in wine region not 'terror' as in terrorist) and says that we must be Republicans as everyone in upper state New York is and aren't we ever so pleased that the Donald is in office. We explain that no, we're from Canada and we have an entirely different view of things. In particular the Donald has promised to gut health care and what will people do then? Oh, well I'm covered and I'll be much better off with lower taxes. This was the point when we recognized the futility of debating with a table leg -- I told him to go away, do not talk to us!

Anyways, back to the travel adventures ....

Siem Reap is one of the largest cities in Cambodia (after Phnom Penh of course) and is most famous for the Angkor Wat (and the many other similar structures) built by the Khmer Empire back around 1100 or so. That's around the time of the Battle of Hastings. The Khmer were a very advanced civilization by comparison if these structures are anything to go by.

The first full day we visited the Angkor National Museum and then Angkor Wat that evening for sunset. Angkor Wat is a huge and very busy complex of nested courtyards. We never got beyond the first before closing time at dusk. It's the most popular Wat to see but they're all impressive and all very crowded with tourists like us.

The next day we visited Ta Prohm which is famous for the strangler figs and banyan trees which envelope the ruins. And then we saw Angkor Thom (the Banyan) which first appears as a jumble but as you explore the site the organization becomes clear with the many 4-headed towers in a regular geometric pattern.

All of these temples have had lots of work done to try to restore them towards what they might have looked like a thousand years ago but there is a ton of work to be done. Both are famous from Hollywood movies made here -- Laura Croft's "Tomb Raider" and Indiana Jones' "Temple of Doom" (see this article which has some lovely pictures).

We stayed at a lovely oasis of a hotel off the busy streets and down a dusty alley called the Green Leaf not too far from the "Pub Street" area. I would highly recommend the hotel, the swimming pool, the helpful friendly staff, the excellent food and service, and especially the two house cats -- Oscar and Ginger who welcomed us! We read about the hotel in the Toronto Star -- it's a non-profit owned by Canadians. Their mission is to train locals and get them into work in the hospitality industry.

We loved our Tuk Tuk experience with Mr. S.B. -- these little motorized rickshaw affairs powered by small motorcycles are a cheap and fun way to explore the city and country side.  ..... once you've learned to trust that you're not going to be killed in the busy traffic! There are very few "managed" intersections.