Siem Reap, Cambodia

Siem Reap marked the midway point of our travels, and gave us both a few high points and low points of our trip, as well as a few great stories. Such as: the time we got locked inside an Angkor temple during a monsoon and the guards lost the key; the time we went for a leisurely horseback ride through the country and Josh (almost!) lost his camera and Katherine got thrown into a ditch on the side of the road; and the time we showed up for our flight to find it had been canceled and they had no record of our tickets.

Most people come to Siem Reap for one reason: Angkor Wat. The city exists mainly as a home base for temple visits, and we did not find many reasons to otherwise recommend it (although it does have great restaurant options - we had a six course tasting menu at a restaurant that is on many "Best in Asia" lists for $28 a person).  

"Pub Street," the main backpackers downtown area, was far more touristy and less authentic than any place we'd been so far, so we didn't spend much time down there.  

Siem Reap's Pub Street.

Our hotel, on the other hand, was a 10 minute tuk tuk ride away from town, down a dusty dirt/clay road. It was worth the trip, though, for a beautiful resort with multiple pools and a gigantic room.

Our hotel, the Navutu Dreams Resort.

We started bright and early on our first day at Angkor Wat with a tuk tuk driver assigned by our hotel to basically be at our beck and call for the week, and also hired a guide for the day. The temples were incredible to see, although not surprisingly were often unpleasantly crammed full of tourists. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history, and it was interesting to learn about the alternating Hindu and Buddhist control over the temples over time and how the city of Angkor was lost for 500 years after the capital of Cambodia was moved to Phnom Penh to be further from the Thai border. 

Waiting for tourists to pose (and pay).

We also learned about how virtually none of the tourist money spent at Angkor makes it back to the Cambodian people. Cambodia made Vietnam seem rich by comparison. There were unfortunately many children begging and selling trinkets outside of temples here. We were advised to never buy anything from a child here as it just encourages more parents to send their children to work (and even heard stories about parents deliberating breaking their children's legs to attract more money).

The temples are all in varying states of repair, and although there are ongoing restoration efforts everywhere, some of the more popular temples are ones that are still in a more natural state and have trees growing through walls. One, the Ta Prohm temple, was used extensively in the "Tomb Raider" movie, and has been left in much the same condition as it was found, with massive trees growing in and on the temple walls.

The monsoon season finally caught up with us here, and we were climbing one of the temples when the skies opened on us in a torrential downpour. We tried to wait it out, sheltering in archways, but the rain just did not let up. We finally just climbed down in the rain, waded through pools of water to the exit, to find the doors chained shut. Apparently when it rains this heavily, the guards close the temple so no tourists get hurt climbing, but these particular guards did not bother to get the tourists who were already inside out first. Then, apparently, the person with the only key to the gate went off on a motorbike to lunch. Eventually the guy with the key came back, just before we got to the point of climbing over the fences.

The temple, before the rain started.  We should've known to be wary with those storm clouds during rainy season.

Monsoon!

Soaked to the bone.

The next day we went back with just our tuk tuk driver to see more temples. You can spend weeks here just seeing temples, but after two days we ended up a bit "templed out." The fatigue from two weeks of travel was also starting to kick in for us at this point.

Driving through the Angkor Temples area with our dedicated driver for our entire stay, Mr. Thon.

Another highlight included seeing the Phare Cambodian Circus, which has its own training school that trains and educates under-privileged youth:

We thought it would be fun on our third day to take a scenic horseback ride through the countryside. Unfortunately the trip ended poorly, with Katherine's horse bucking her off into a ditch on the side of the road. The next day we had planned a day-long motorbike trip to a temple in the jungle, but that unfortunately had to be canceled in order to recuperate. The fall also made the tuk tuk ride over a bumpy dirt road from our hotel into town pretty painful. Luckily our hotel was a nice resort so we could relax there by the pool (it was a serious upgrade from our Saigon hotel, which we tried to spend as little time as possible in).

We didn't love Cambodia the way that we loved Vietnam, but we also saw an incredibly small portion of the country. After a few days in Siem Reap, we were ready to be off to Thailand.