The border crossing was over, we didn’t have to think about that again.. until the next one. Let’s get on an enjoy Cambodia. A new place, new country, new people, new sites to see. So exciting! By the time we got into Siem Reap it was dark. We hopped inside a tuk-tuk, who were waiting eagerly for us to get off our minibus, and they took us to where we wanted to go. Easy sale for the evening.
We had booked in at the ‘Garden Village Guest House’ on Hostelworld, link below, on the way over to Siem Reap at one of our bus breaks. Two lovely girls from South America on our bus recommended it, so we decided to go with that. These two were the nicest girls; one from Chile and one from Brazil. Their English was better than ours! We stuck with them through most of Cambodia.
It was a beautiful hostel; you can just see from the photos in the link. They served a beer tower, at the pool bar, which cost us three dollars. This gets you about three litres of beer! Just over five pints! We as British, were in love.
A side note on Cambodian currency very quickly. You pay anything over one dollar, in dollars. Anything under one dollar, you pay in their local currency; Cambodian Riel. It’s about five thousand riel to the pound. Four thousand riel to the dollar. Beer is about one dollar and a meal is about three dollars, from what I remember. I hope that helps. Sorry, let’s continue…
We met a group of six other travellers at this hostel. A mix of two American boys, one Irish lad and three British girls. We ended up spending most of the time with them throughout another four countries in South East Asia. So if you see me type out ‘the group’ anywhere, you know who I will be referring to.
We got stuck straight into the Siem Reap touristy sites, with a visit to the Angkor Wat temple. Not to be missed. We took a sunrise tour, but you can also see it throughout the day or sunset as well; depending on whether you are a sunrise or sunset person. For the time of year we were there, October, it was very cloudy. Perhaps if you are wanting those extra special photos you may want to go at a time when the weather is clear. Usually, January through to April.
At the time I didn’t even have a plan of starting a travel blog site and a travelgram, so I didn’t really care about what my photographs looked like back then. I am currently in the process of writing a ‘You May Think You Don’t Care, But You Will’ blog; it’s a good one. (Subscribe to the site to get the latest updates on this).
We bought a full day tour for around ten dollars taking in the main temples in the Angkor Wat Complex. Just to let you know there are seventy-two temples here in total. Yes, seventy-two. They tried to get us to pay for a four-day pass to the complex but we were templed out after just one day. So tip for this: I would recommend just a half day tour or a one day tour. Nothing more. Unless you are very keen to take ten thousand photos of the same sort of thing, up to you.
Our tour for the day took us to ‘Angkor Wat’ first of all; the main temple that everyone wants to see. We then went round to the ‘Ta Prohm’ temple. This is the same one seen in the film Tomb Raider, for any Lara Croft fans. To me, this one was more interesting than the Angkor Wat. It was smaller and it had loads of massive tree roots running through it, it just looked like something futuristic. They then took us around to two other temples, which were smaller, looked the same as the others, but not as impressive. Are you having enough of this while reading it? Next we arrived at the ‘Bayon’ Temple. This was a cool one. It had two hundred faces on it! The guide gave us thirty minutes to have a good look around. After this, we thought that had to have been the last one but nooooo. The guide said he still wanted to take us round to five others. Our eyes widened as he said this.
Nia and I both looked at each other and said at the same time. “I’ve had enough, let’s go get a beer”. So we headed back to Pub Street for some Cambodian cuisine and a pint. It was a pleasant afternoon, the clouds seemed to clear up and we sat in a nice restaurant on pub street, upstairs, with a balcony overlooking the rest of the street. We were having a nice time. Then, all of a sudden, I got a very bad stomach ache.
Now I’m not going to go into detail on this blog, but I have started writing a ‘Getting Ill While Travelling’ blog which will be posted under the Help and Guidance Page. If you want to read about my first very bad experience, it’ll be on there.
So, three days have past since then. Long story short, I was very ill. When I woke up a few days later, I felt like a whole new woman. Perfect! Back to beers and staying out until four AM. Once we felt like we had seen enough of Pub Street and the surrounding sights of Siem Reap it was time for our next stop, Koh Rong Island.
We booked another easy bus ticket which took us the long journey from Siem Reap via Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. In hindsight had we known we were going to get into the shittest part of Cambodia at nighttime we wouldn’t have taken that journey. We would have gone to Phnom Penh first and seen this city. Then in the same day gone from there to Koh Rong Island in one shot. However we couldn’t do that this time cause we had missed the last boat ride over.
But ALAS! Thank god for the South American girls who had already planned this ahead and had found the nicest place to stay at Otres Beach, just outside of Sihanoukville. This was much better! They again had recommended a property, the ‘Sea Garden Bungalows’, which was literally right on the beach. It had beany chairs on the sand, a beach bar with a pool table and was all made from wood. This made the place feel very rustic, beachy and authentic. There were barely any other travellers there so it felt very secluded; like we had really found (or they had) a special hidden gem.
The next morning, after a night at the bungalows, we got a minibus back to Sihanoukville port to get the local boat across to Koh Rong island. The boat takes you to the East side of the island and from there you walk, with your bag, across to the main beach bar area on the West side. There are a few accommodation styles here to choose from. We were on a budget so we stayed at the ‘Suns Of Beaches’ Hostel. Which I don’t think is there anymore. If we went back there we would have paid more for the ‘Tree House Bungalows’. They looked amazing, very authentic, very private and if you want that island life feeling; they were the place to stay. There were a few people we met who were staying in these so we had our own tour of them. They were in a different area from the noisier beach bars just further down the best. These would be perfect for couples as well. I would imagine they would feel very romantic as they were so private.
We spent five nights on the island. By day we were sunbathing on the sand, reading our books and just doing f***-all. We had just spent the past two weeks being full-on tourists so we felt like we deserved this R&R. We did decide on a boat trip one day which took us snorkelling where we met two English lads and girls who ended up taking the same route as us through South East Asia also. ‘The group’ came over a few days later from the main-land and eight suddenly became twelve. We didn’t follow each other the whole time but we just dipped in and out when we saw each other. Nights out, day trips, that sort of thing.
Nia and I liked to get ourselves moving so we decided it was time for the next place. After a few days of island life we were starting to get fidgety, so time for our next stop… Kampot.
LEAH HANCOX 