Asian Adventures - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our journey to Siem Reap was long. Instead of going straight to Siem Reap from Sihanoukville, we had to travel back to Phnom Penh and then wait for an hour at the bus station to change on to the Siem Reap bus. This meant it took us 12 hours to get there! We've definitely did our fair share of long bus journeys on the trip. I feel I can do any bus journey now after being on one for 25 hours from Laos to Vietnam. Although I vowed never to do something like that again!

We stayed at Sizen Retreat and Spa in a lovely bungalow surrounded by trees. We had a restaurant beside our bungalow and a great pool. We arrived quite late at night to check in so got food at the restaurant and then had an early night.

The next day we went to Peace Café for lunch. We sat outside in their massive garden enjoying the sunshine. It's a vegetarian health café and they hold yoga classes their too. We thought we would have a healthy meal after all the unhealthy food we had been gorging on. They had health drinks on the menu so I thought I would have one. I chose the carrot and ginger as it said it helped give you glowing skin. I don't even like carrots but thought it was blitzed with other things it would taste nice. It tasted horrendous! I took one sip then had to leave it as I couldn't stomach it.

In the afternoon I convinced Rory to go to Angkor Wat Put, because what else would you come to Cambodia for? Angkor Wat Put is a crazy golf course where statues of the temples of Angkor Wat are the obstacles. The weather was really dull that day and unfortunately it started raining whilst we were in the tuk tuk going there so we had a wet round of crazy golf. And even more unfortunate, Rory bet me!

 

To make up for me dragging Rory to play crazy golf, he dragged me to a Sports Bar to watch Chelsea play that night. Fair I suppose. The bar was filled with a group of English guys all in to watch the game. The bar had Wi-Fi and deals on cocktails so I was amused! The Sports Bar was a New Zealand one called Jungle Burger and had a mix New Zealand burgers and traditional meals from back home like fish and chips and sausage and mash. I can't even remember what the score was or who won! I was too content with my cocktails! 

 

 

 

The next day we went on the trip that everyone comes to Siem Reap to do, go and see Angkor Wat! This was the last experience we had included in our Bamba Bus Tour. It was a full day trip starting from 8.00am until about 6.30pm. We were exhausted after it! We chose a boiling day for the tour so had to remember to drink lots of water and put lots of sun cream on. 

 

First of all we had to go somewhere to pick up our tickets and get our photos taken for them. Everyone needs to get their photo taken to have ID on their ticket. Our tour bus had missed a group to pick up so we had to wait around until they arrived at the ticket office and had got their tickets.

When we were finally on our way we visited a few temples in the morning, before going to see Angkor Wat in the afternoon. It was amazing to have a look around the temples and our tour guide told us the history behind them all. At the first temple we went to, one girl in our group just wandered off whilst our tour guide was telling us information about the temples. After he told us to go and have a look around for an half and hour and then the group would meet back at the other side. When the meeting time came everyone was there except the girl that wandered off. Her friends went to back in the temple to have a look for her and the group had to wait for ages! Eventually the tour guide said we had to go back to the bus and when we wandered round to it the girl who had gone missing was standing there waiting on us!! Maybe if she had stayed and listened to the tour guide and known how long and where to meet the group we wouldn't have needed to hang around for such a long time.

 

 

Next we visited a tomb shaped temple that had tree branches covering it and was used in the Angelina Jolie film Tomb Rader. I haven't seen the film before but kind of recognised the tomb from the film poster. All the temples at this part were in a wooded area. We spent time wandering around and our tour guide was offering to take group pictures with the tomb in the background. We got some really good pictures from this day but Rory accidentally deleted the last part of our day's photos as he thought they had uploaded to Facebook when they hadn't. We were so gutted!

 

We had lunch in our group at a local restaurant. We sat opposite an Irish couple whom we got chatting to. They were heading to Vietnam next so we gave them tips on where to stay and things to do. After lunch it was time to go to Angkor Wat; what we'd all been waiting on. It was as spectacular as everyone says. We had a look around the back of it first looking around the structure and at the carvings on the walls. Then we made our way round to the postcard picture front of the temple. It was beautiful! The way the sun was reflecting you could see the reflection of it in the pond right in front of where we were standing. Our tour guide was giving us tips on what angle to take the best photos from but like I said unfortunately we lost these pictures we took. It was amazing just to stand back and take the view all in. It definitely is an amazing thing to see! It's crazy to think this building that's so big and with such an intricate design was built thousands of years ago! If you stand in the direction of Angkor Wat you get the beautiful view of that and then if you turn around there's a fleet of stalls and restaurants obviously cashing in on the tourist attract.

 

 

 

 

After everyone had finished taking pictures we headed back to the bus. Exhausted after our jam packed day we thought we were en route back to the hotel but were told we now were off to climb up to the top of a temple to watch the sunset. We hiked up the hill, had to wait in a queue to get through the stewards at the stairs to the very top and then when we reached the summit there were trees surrounding the whole temple so we couldn't see the sunset! We would have had such a good view had the trees not been there which was a shame. We headed down and back to the bus which took us back to our hotel.

 

When we got back to the hotel we were so tired from our full on day we couldn't be bothered to walk in to town so just wandered along the road and found a gem of a restaurant, Marum. All the profits from the restaurant go towards helping to train students to work in hospitality and in their restaurants and to raise money for a charity that helps street children. This was probably the best meal we've had on our trip. The menu was all small plates and you chose 2 or 3 between to share like tapas. We chose penne with chilli and cashew nut pesto, sea bass with ginger and eggplant and roast duck and pumpkin croquettes. It was all so fresh and tasted amazing. We were both so impressed with the food.

 

 

The next day was our last in Siem Reap and last day in Cambodia. We had a very chilled out day making the most of lying by the pool. Then at night we went to get dinner in the centre and see their famous Pub Street. We got a tuk tuk over from our hotel and found the tuk tuk prices really reasonable in Siem Reap. We had dinner at xxxxx, a Khmer (Cambodian) restaurant as I wanted to try Fish Amok before we left Cambodia. We wanted to go somewhere near Pub Street and so when we found xxxxx and it had good reviews we chose there. The food was really good and I was glad to tick another local meal off my list. Although the restaurant lacked atmosphere as it was only us and another table in the place for the whole time we were there. 

 

 

 

Afterwards we had a Khmer cocktail making class at a bar called Asana. This was just something I had read about when researching things to do in Siem Reap and thought it sounded fun. We thought it would be a good experience as you used and learnt about Khmer ingredients. It was really great value for money as it cost $15 for a 90 minute class where you made 3 cocktails. The women who took our cocktail class was really fun and chatty and even convinced Rory to do a song on the piano in the bar!The first cocktail you make is using traditional herbs and spices where they tell you what flavours go well together and you get to try each one and also try out their rice wine which is so strong! The second one is a Khmer take on a traditional cocktail and then the third you choose from a list which one you would like to try. When you had finished making your last cocktail you could go and grab a cushion or swinging chair in the bar to enjoy your drink. The bar was a cool design and had felt like a tree house with all the greenery round it and windows and doors having no glass pains. It started bucketing down during our class but there's something nice about feeling like you're outside whilst it's heavy rainy but still being under cover.

 

 

It was a lovely relaxing way to end our time in Cambodia and to finish our Bamba Bus tour. We had such a great time in Cambodia and I think it was one of my favourite countries we visited. We had completely our Bamba tour starting in Bangkok and going through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and then Cambodia. We just had one more bus ride to take us back to Bangkok. We then had to book our own transport from there as we travelled to a few Thai islands, Singapore and Bali before returning back to Scotland.

 

I spent 3 months altogether in Asia and had an amazing time, I really hope I am able to return to some of my favourite places in the future!

 

Recommendations -

 

Sizen Retreat and Spa - http://www.sizen-retreat.com/

 

Angkor Wat Putt - http://www.angkorwatputt.com/

 

Peace Café - http://www.peacecafeangkor.org/

 

Jungle Burger - https://www.jungleburgersiemreap.com/

 

Angkor Wat - https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g297390-d317907-Reviews-Angkor_Wat-Siem_Reap_Siem_Reap_Province.html

 

Marum - https://www.travelfish.org/eatandmeet_profile/cambodia/western_cambodia/siem_reap/siem_reap/2124

 

Asana - https://www.asana-cambodia.com/