Garden Village Guesthouse & Restaurant Siem Reap

I arrived in Bangkok without any troubles at all and checked into my hostel. I spent the next two days getting myself organized, buying contact lenses and so on and eating lots of great food from the street vendors! Yesterday ( tuesday) I was up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to the border of thailand and cambodia, which took a little over 4 hours. After falling victim to a visa scam I finally ended up over the boarder, having paid a considerably larger sum for my visa than planned, but ...

(Adam) After a lazy afternoon after the boat trip, it continued that way. We had intended to get out to see some of the temples but kim was feeling a little ropey and i fancied a day of doing nothing so thats what we did. Popped out to eat a couple of times, succoming to western food after a week of thai/cambodian was welcome. While kim had an afternoon nap i went out and about in Siem Reap including the food market which was much like the one we had experienced in Battambang. Bought a book a...

Ankor Wat, Chong Khneas Floating Village and Siem Reap City

My journey continues to be inspiring beyond belief. I've finished my travels in Laos, one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. I had an amazing time after Vientiane, meeting up with a couple other American backpackers and the original crew that I've been with for about 6 weeks now. We finished up Laos in the incredible 4000 islands, a place so chilled out you have to check your pulse every so often to make sure you're still breathing. For 1 dollar a day, you can rent your own riversi...

Upon further reflection, I think yesterday actually reversed some of the opinions I formed after visiting the War Remnants museum in Saigon, which made me very anti-war. But it is definitely sometimes necessary and justified - who knows what would have happened if Vietnam didn't eventually invade Cambodia. On the other hand it was kind of the American war that lead to the whole Khmer Rouge problem in the first place, and in a war it was war being waged by the Khmer Rouge against other Cambodi...

After finally deciding to leave our temporary home of Phnom Pehn we headed North to Siem Reap on Saturday morning. Although we paid almost double for our bus tickets through our guesthouse we ended up traveling on what appeared to be a local bus...we were the only tourists. It was an interesting experience that included a very run down aircon system that barely worked, karaoke, Cambodian horror films, speeds reaching 100 km/hour, and about 20 pairs of eyes staring at us for the entire trip. L...

Bonjour,
apres 12 heures de bus depuis Saigon (je m entraine pour la birmanie :-) ),
je suis bien arrive a Siem Reap au Cambodge. Mon hotel est le repere des backpackers avec un restaurant-bar sur le toit. Genial ! Des le premier soir je fais la connaissance de Margaret et Ursula, deux polonaises, une mere et sa fille qui voyagent durant 1 mois au Vietnam. On sympathise et on passera quelques soirees et les deux dernieres journees ensemble.
Le deux premiers jours je passe mes journee...

So, I decided to catch the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap. The centre of Cambodia is full of one great big lake, the Tonle Sap. It's really big, muddy and full of fish, boats and pollution. Now everything I've heard from people has told me to get the bus, it's 1/3 of the price, 1/2 the time and 10 x the comfort but does that sound fun to you? I went down to the dock the evening before to check out the boat and try and negotiate on the price of a ticket. So, I knew what I was getting myself...

Disembarking the bus at Siem Reap bus station we are bumped and jossled by a sea of tuc tuc and moto drivers. Before we know it, over-enthusastic drivers are hauling our backpacks to their tuc tuc in desparate attempts for passengers. It is overwhelming and fighting it is futile. Soon we were seated and on our way to guesthouse ville. The tuc-tuc drivers will take you to any guesthouse in town free of charge but will try to bring you to a guesthouse that they get commision from. Also, they ho...