We flew into Bangkok at lunchtime on Thursday and only ended up stayed there on Thursday night – it was packed street to street with tourists and didn’t really appeal to either of us. We took the train from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet (the closest town to the border), which took six hours…..no air conditioning, but the windows are all open so there was a reasonable breeze (albeit warm) blowing through, and it was a great way to see some of the countryside. We hadn’t read anything about people staying a night in Aranyaprathet, and it doesn’t seem many do – out of the whole town we only saw two other white people! But it was nice, being in a place with no tourists compared to the craziness of Bangkok.
Left the guesthouse bright and early on Saturday, had a bite to eat (the hottest curry I’ve ever tasted, I might add – two plates of curry and rice and a big bottle of Coke was 90 baht…..about $2.50…bargain!) and got a tuk tuk to the border. We then managed to get a decent taxi driver after we walked through the border, who got us to Siem Reap in two hours. We’d read lots of stories of people who were scammed before, during or after passing the border, but we had no problems which was a nice surprise! The main roads are crazy, and remind me a lot of Kenya – traffic travelling in both directions with an invisible ‘third lane’ in the middle which people weave in and out of to pass bikes, tuk tuks, other cars, etc….and then zip back into their lane just as you think you’re about to be in a head-on collision. Lovely stuff! You either get used to it, or stop looking out the front window!
We’ve spent the last 6 nights in Siem Reap, alternating days by spending a day in town and then the next day at the temples of Angkor – for which I have absolutely no words. Except to say they are absolutely amazing, and it would have been unreal to see what they looked like when they were originally built. Google it. Yesterday we actually biked around the temples – all in all we clocked up about 40km…..it was quite nice early in the morning, but the trip back was at 2pm and the hottest part of the day (about 35-36 degrees) – needless to say, it was a long trip!
Siem Reap is a pretty cool town – quite big, with a couple of main streets (the most popular, ‘Pub Street’) housing the bars, guesthouses and restaurants, and the other streets and side streets with markets and more guesthouses. Tourists everywhere though, as it’s the city everybody stays in when visiting the temples. HEAPS of tourists from other Asian countries – Japan, China, etc, and quite a few Americans and Europeans too. Not as many Aussies as I expected. Relatively cheap – our room is basic but only $6 a night, main meals at most restaurants are around $3 to $5 (they make up for it by selling glasses of draft beer for $0.50 – we love that!) and a plate of rice and a plate of stir-fry veggies from a food stall on the street is only $1. There are lots of kids on the street that follow you, trying to sell you books, postcards, bangles, etc, but we’ve seen that as soon as they sell something, they give the money to an adult standing nearby – so that’s obviously not a good thing to support. We were surprised to see that if you give them food or a can of drink, they often go to the nearest shop and re-sell it! So it’s like, what do you do?
We’re heading off on Saturday by boat to Battambang for three nights, then by bus to Phnom Penh for two nights, then by bus to Sihanoukville for some beach days, before heading back up to Phnom Penh around the 2nd March to meet up with Christian (the Austrian guy) and then up to Stung Treng from there.
That’s it from me for now – going to try cycling around the temples one more time this afternoon….then it'll definitely be time for some more cold beers! xoxox
