Angkor What?
Trip Start
Dec 28, 2007
1
15
27
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Where I stayed
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Angkor Round 1: We arrived from Luang Prabang, Laos with Adam on February 14. We booked ourselves into the Raffles Grand Hotel D'Angkor, one of the best hotels anywhere. Being Valentines day, Andrea and Andrew had a dinner alone at the Grand Hotel and went to the Apsara Dancing Buffet Dinner. The food was excellent as was the show. Adam went into town to party at "bar street". This was our second stay at the Grand Hotel (we stayed there in Christmas, 06). During our first stay, we met a charming young man who worked at the hotel named "Pheng". We tried to track down Pheng this time, and discovered he was now a tour guide. So we hired Pheng as our guide for the remainder of the trip and also secured a driver to take us to the temples.
On day 2, we started with Angkor Thom, a large complex of temples just outside of Angkor Wat proper
Adam in Bantay Srei
. Bayon was the first temple visited. Bayon contains tremendous carvings on the ground floor and wonderful buddha statutes at the top. After Bayon, we visited the terrace of elephants, the royal palace and the concubine pool. Pheng, very knowledgable in the history of Angkor Wat, told us many stories of kings, gods, consorts and concubines. Every story involved beautiful women, kings at war and trying to appease the gods. The temples were truly spectacular as was Pheng's rendition of Cambodian history.After three days of Angkor Wat, two of which were spent exploring the temples, we flew to Phnom Penh for four days with Adam (our off day was spent hanging at the Spa and pool at the hotel). Adam then departed from Phnom Penh to Bangkok and Andrew and Andrea left for Saigon via bus. From Saigon we flew to Hoi An (Da Nang) where we spent four days then back to Saigon to meet Andrew's mom Peggy, step-father Jack, and their good friends John and Nancy.
We met everybody at the airport, spent a day in Saigon, then back to Angkor Wat via Vietnam Airlines.
Angkor Round 2: On our second trip to Angkor Wat, we stayed at the FCC, a very nice boutique hotel with a decent restaurant and a nice happy hour
Andrea and Pheng in Ta Phrom
. Our evening usually started with walking up to the Grand Hotel D'Angkor for happy hour in the Elephant Bar, and then on to dinner. We did the Apsara dancing buffet again for the benefit of the Angkor newbies and hit the major temple sites: Angkor Wat, Bayon and Angkor Thom, Ta Phrom, Bantey Srei and the Rolous group. Even though we had just been there two weeks ago and two times on previous trips, the temples retained all of their splendor and mystique. It was great to see mom and Jack experience Angkor after trying to lure them over there for all of these years. Since he had done such a great job last time, we hired Pheng again as our guide and Mr. Mao (Mr. Black) as our driver. Everybody had a great time and the weather was wonderful. The food was great as well, but everybody's stomach's were a little off-kilter, to be expected in Cambodia for sure.It's amazing how much Siem Reap has changed in the four years we have been going there. It almost has a Las Vegas boom town feel to it. Four years ago there were no ATM's, now they are everywhere. There are also three times as many hotels, restaurants, bars and tourists. Fortunately this business boom has not diminished the beauty or splendor of the temples. It has also certainly helped the local economy and the Cambodian people as well, people whose standard of living is rising quickly although Cambodia remains a very poor country. Cambodia as a whole feels much safer for travelers as well. In the recent past, everywhere except siem reap was dangerous for westerners, but now the whole country seems very safe and suitable for adventure.
If you are thinking of doing a trip to SE Asia, Angkor Wat and Siem Reap should be ground zero. It is something everybody should see, a truly awesome site.
