Angkor Wat was one of my dream destinations and the centerpiece of my trip. Unfortunately, pretty much everything went wrong with my trip there. It started with my getting booked in a guesthouse that had some major flaws. First they spoke almost no English (French was spoken). This is VERY bad, since this is your main source of information. What are they key things for you to do? What options do you have? How much should they cost? And so on. Second, there was no one around to share the cost of a tour/driver, so that also doubles your costs. Finally, the guesthouse was no where near town, so you had no access to any other sources of information (and the first 30 minutes are critical here, since almost all of your plans for your visit are made immediately, since everyone is trying to sell you there services as your tuk tuk driver). So it turns out I was acting on some bad information from a guide book, which said that what you do is hire a tuk tuk driver for the day and they act as tourguide as well. Well this guest house first hooked me up with a driver who also did not speak english. I first had to book a flight to Luang Prabang, so after explaining what I needed, the folks at the guest house got the tuk tuk driver to take me to what might be the most expensive travel agent in town (they were charging me $30 more than what I saw elsewhere for the same flight-luckily I did not book my ticket with them and asked at another travel agency first). I soon fired the driver do to lack of english and hired another one. This new driver really did not work out either. First the driver set up a 3 day plan for me, which sounded ok. It consisted of:
Sunset at some popular location my first evening
The "mini-tour" of the parks highlights the 1st full day
The grand tour of some other temples the 2nd day
Finally sunrise and another temple the finally morning before I flew out
Well this sounded ok, but it wasn't. The driver did not seem to want to take me more than once to see a sunrise, so I was gambling on good weather the last day. Second, most of the temples really have a few times of the day where the light is spectacular, and sunrise is the most common time. So it really matters what time you go- its a completely different experience at different times of the day. Finally, as it turns out the driver
a. had a bad tuk tuk that went half the speed of everyone else (this will become significant on day 3...)
b. provided no information
c. It turns out that I was not getting him for the day, but just for some designated few temples. If I completely the temples fast, well the driver would charge me LOTS more to see anything else.
So the first evening I was taken to the popular temple for seeing the sunset- the driver stayed below while I hiked up to the temple. I spent my time looking at the temple. I was not told that the place is famous because you get a great view of Angkor Wat from this temple at sunset. (I learned that when I later bought a guidebook.) We did drive by Angkor Wat at sunset, so I took a few photos from across the moat, but I was told by my driver that they charge an extra $20 to go inside the complex for sunset (is this true? is it really not included in my 3 day pass?)
Yuck.
The next morning I was woken up at 4 AM by the dogs at the guesthouse (they woke me up at 4AM every morning), but my morning was wasted since the driver was not coming until 7 AM. I was taken first to Angkor Wat. This is an incredible temple, surrounded by a moat. Its the largest religious building in the world. There are great views from outside the temple, over some reflecting ponds and thousands of incredible reliefs all over the temple. I was disoriented and needed a guide. A guard asked me as I entered if I wanted a guide, and I said yes, although I preferred to split it. After waiting in vain for 15 minutes for someone else to come to share a guide, and ended up alone. I was charged $10 by a college student, so show me around Angkor Wat. Well I got a bad 1 hour tour, with little information and poor english. I was already pretty upset. I soon bought a very good guide book from someone selling the guidebooks at AW for $7.
I did spend 2 hours walking around that fabulous temple. Next I got taken to Angkor Thom, and amazing city, with the Bayon, a temple with these incredible faces everywhere in the center of the city. There were a number of people there getting great tours from there english speaking guides. Meanwhile, I was struggling to read my guidebook while looking at the temple ,and not finding half of the reliefs described by the guidebook. I asked one of the guides, how do I get a guide? I was told that my tuk-tuk driver should have arranged that for me back in town. But they found a police officer to give me a tour. The officer charged me $30 for the rest of the day (it was $20 for the entire day back in town, so again I overpaid badly). He turned out to be a quite good guide, and also knew where some of the best angles were to take some cool photos. After the bayon, he changed out of his police uniform, to "become my guide" (although he kept his walky talky with him). Apparently, when you get offered a full months salary (he got $30/month as a police officer) to be a tour guide, you stop working your day job, for the day.
Anyway, we saw Angkor Thom, had lunch (somehow I got stuck for the bill for all 3 of us) and then saw Ta Prohm (tomb raider was filmed there) which has incredible trees and a ghostly appearance. Its incredible how different the different temples are from each other. I was not expecting this. At this point the tuk-tuk driver says we should go to the floating village for sunset, and the tourguide (its 3 PM and I hired him about 10:30 for "the day"), said your tour is over (I thought I had agreed to $30 for the rest of the day, what the hell is going on?). For some reason, I am a loser, and I paid him the $30. I really should have insisted he comes with, or better yet that the driver not take me to the village, but instead takes me to more temples where the tourguide is of use. Now the driver takes me 1 hour outside of town, and to a boat. I said, you didn't say anything about a boat. And then I asked and found out that the ten minute boat ride cost $25 (the driver for the day was costing $12). I refused to pay the $25, walked around the small village on the land where you can see many houseboats, and then was driven back to town. The driver charged me $20 -its $8 EXTRA to go to the floating village. Now why he didn't say this before, I have no idea. But why I
a. paid him
b. didn't fire him immediately
is a mystery that I need to figure out. Since, I was just being taken advantage of, and it only got worse....
I did have a great dinner that night, including this mango salad that was to die for and a great fish dish in a banana leaf. The food in siem reap (the town next to Angkor Wat) was consistently very good.
