Siem Reap, Cambodia

Six hours of the worst bus ride in our lives later we arrived in Siem Reap. Siem Reap is about 150 miles north-west of Phnom Penh and in most countries that would be a 2.5 hour bus ride on smooth roads. Our ride to Siem Reap took 6 hours and was as smooth as .... I don't know what. But it wasn't smooth. It also wasn't quick. The road to Siem Reap was similar to India's roads, filled with potholes and shared with livestock. I do need to say that the countryside of Cambodia is beautiful. It is completely undeveloped. It is nothing but endless rice paddies with peasants working it with their bare hands. It's amazing, and sad, realizing that the people we were seeing were doing the same job that their ancestors had been doing for centuries.

The night that we arrived in Siem Reap we went out to a traditional Khmer (people of Cambodia) dinner and dance. Both the food and entertainment were good, not great, but very different. The guest house that we stayed in was both great and different. It wasn't so much a house as it was more like a motel. There were 30 rooms or so and on top of the office was an outdoor lounge area with a pool table, comfortable chairs, bar and an aura of complete laziness.

In our first day in Siem Reap we hit up the temples. Siem Reap is home to not only the world famous Angkor Wat temple, but also dozens of other incredible temples, some as large as a small town. We spent hours doing the Indiana Jones thing, literally climbing all over old temples and exploring inside. These temples were exactly the way they are portrayed in the movies "Tomb Raider" and "Indian Jones" (filmed in Siem Reap). The temples are covered with fauna, surrounded by moats, carved with interesting pictures, and simply amazing. We spent the entire day going from one temple to another. In the afternoon we visited Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is the largest temple in the world, about 1 square kilometer. It's surrounded by a moat and considering it's centuries old and barely maintained, it's in fantastic condition. Even though there were hundreds of tourists visiting the temple, since it was so large we were constantly finding ourselves alone in the temple's many rooms.

As the afternoon came to a close we tuck-tucked over to Phnom Bahkeng, a large temple built on top of a hill. We were told that Phnom Bahkeng is the place to be to watch a sunset in Siem Reap, and it definitely was. We climbed the hill and massive temple with a couple hundred of our closest friends and sat to watch the show. It didn't start off that great, but ended phenomenally.

At night we went to the Night Market in Siem Reap. The Night Market is awesome because it's filled with cool souvenirs and clothing for dirt cheap prices. We got some clothes and did some Christmas shopping for less than $10. Since we planned to get up early for the sunrise the next morning we didn't do any partying, just chilled.

4:30am our alarm clock went off and we headed out for Angkor Wat. We were told by many people and books that watching the sunrise at Angkor Wat is a must in Cambodia. The sunrise at Angkor Wat wasn't nearly as great as our sunset the night before, but it was OK. The great part about the sunrise at Angkor Wat though, was the fact that no one was there. It was an incredible feeling walking around the largest temple in the world with only the birds and bats around you.

After the sunrise we took a loooong tuck-tuck ride to see the Floating Village. The Floating Village is only a few miles outside of Siem Reap, but on a tuck-tuck powered by a lawn mower engine, with four people on it, on dirt roads, you don't go very fast, nor smooth (to get to the Floating Village we had to drive several miles to the boat launch and then take a boat another mile or so to the Floating Village). The boat ride to the Floating Village was a total hoot. Our driver was no older than 16 and on the one mile journey our boat stopped at least 5 times. Each time the driver would have to walk back and fix something with the engine. Not the most reassuring, but since we were in no hurry and the weather was perfect, what was the rush? The one mile boat ride took about 45 minutes and we finally arrived at the Floating Village. The Floating Village isn't named properly. It is a village, but it doesn't really float. The village is made up of a couple hundred huts on 15 foot stilts. The village is in a swamp that is about 4 feet deep with trees growing everywhere. There is absolutely no land anywhere but the villagers have a completely normal life. Everyone gets around on boat, some powered by paddles, a few by motors. It was funny seeing a boat full of school girls paddling to each other's huts to get dropped off. The Cambodian version of a school bus. The villagers even have livestock in their village. Many huts had pig pens below the house or in a tree near their house. The pigs that they kept spend their entire life in pens 4 feet above water and never see dry land their entire lives. We ate lunch at one of the houses and chilled out even more. From the house Lara and I hopped on a small boat (large canoe really) and one of the villagers paddled us around the jungle. The experience was absolutely incredible. We were being paddled around a jungle deep in the heart of Cambodia! When we got back to the house we boarded our larger boat and went back to dry land. The Floating Village definitely ranks as one of the most unusual places we've been to on this trip.

On the drive back to Siem Reap we saw a few more temples, but then threw in the towel. In two days in Siem Reap we probably saw close to 40 temples. There's only so much temple a person can handle. To relieve our templitis we hit up the bar scene in Siem Reap. For a small town in the middle of Cambodia, Siem Reap has a really good night life. We hit up a few bars, met some cool English people our age, then bumped into the same travelling bike group we met in Phnom Penh. Small world. Since we got up at 4:30 that morning we didn't really have the desire to keep the party going late, we crashed at 1am.

Our final day in Siem Reap we just checked out the town. There isn't much to the town, but that's what makes it great. Lots of little markets, guest houses, street food vendors, and nice restaurants and bars fill the town. We spent most of the day buying $1 souvenirs and relaxing. That night we stopped at some more bars and restaurants and really fell in love with Siem Reap. We left the following morning for Bangkok. Siem Reap will definitely be missed.