Day 1
Travel day today to Siem Reap. My friend decided to drive his car, and part of why I stayed extra days in Phnom Penh.
Took us almost 6hours to get to Siem Reap, the lack of express hwy made it extra slow. There were a lot of slow drivers on the road, as well. By the time we get to town was already past 2pm.
The temperature was quite nice. Sunny but not blazing hot. Under the shades, it’s just perfect.
I paid for the lunch since my friend drove. It was 75k I think. Hard to track the exact cash amount.
We stayed at the Glow Inn hotel which is right by the pub street. ($26.72) Easy to park my friend’s car.
Locals celebrating Christmas early. It’s getting pretty dark, my friend still decided to take me for a joy/preview ride around Angkor Wat
It’s definitely a massive complex, just couldn’t capture many photos at this hours.
It was World Cup final night, loads of Football related parties.
At this point I was getting quite tired after a long car ride from Phnom Penh. I decided to just simply lie down a bit and wait for another person (my friend’s friend from Siem Reap) to arrive
We ultimately decided to just stay at the hotel to hang out at the hotel bar.
The streaming wasn’t working that well, I wanted to see if I could make my Disney Plus sub work. After almost 45mins research, I still couldn’t figure out. The sleep god was calling me then, I went to sleep. (We also had like 7-8 beers each person. My friend’s friend decided to pick the tab)
Day 2
Got up fairly early to get our bikes ($5). Bikes are in very good conditions, the owners pumped more air in and put some lubes. It took about 45min to the first temple.
As much as I appreciate archeological things. Lack of any signages or boards made it much harder to know the significance.
Lunch time!
This is definitely a very meat heavy lunch (75k)
Time flu by fast, and it’s almost at sunset. The weather was nice though, not too hot with a nice breeze.
Time for sunset watching!
While waiting for the perfect moment, I chatted with a few. A Japanese girl solo traveling from Thailand – she’s studying Southeast Asia in Bangkok. Another Mexican from Cabos that studies in China Northeast university and speaks Chinese.
It’s getting really dark and the traffic wasn’t getting better either. We still had to bike 45min to town.
I decided to have Porridge for dinner.
Food was really good! I finished 3 bowls of porridge (50k riels). I got very stomach sick a few hours later. I think maybe my body isn’t used to the bacteria from the salted fish?
I accidentally booked the wrong hotel room, and had to pay $5 difference which is annoying. Most hotels charge the same between double and twin. It is what it is.
The Angkor Wat ticketing system is also confusing. It was not clear where to get the tickets or how long ticket should last. I paid $62 for 3-day pass.
Day 3
Another friend joined today, he really wanted to check out this village and eat there.
The noodles ($20k was the total I think, my friend paid for it) are okay. Not quite as good as the ones I had in the Sihanoukville market. The interesting part is all the random greens that we can eat with the noodles
I definitely think we spent way too much time just eating, and eating really makes me feel tired.
After that we went to Banteay Srei Temple. It has to be my favorite when comes the park maintenance. Clear signs everywhere and are really good conditions
Then we stopped by a palm processing stall for some palm juice and seeds
After that we went back to the main complex
The holy water there is said to have medicinal power?
I became extremely tired at this point. Back pain! I think it’s a result of my body spending energy fighting some sort of bacteria from the food the night before.
After that we went to the last stop (my friend was also tired due to having all night clubs the night before) of the day Bayon Temple. It’s massive, too bad only the ground level is open.
Lots of sculptures to describe stories and ordinary lives
This site actually has pretty solid boards that explain things which I appreciate
There were loads of monkeys there, I think we probably spent more time just rested and watched the monkeys
I took some medicine and took a short break while my friends went out for a massage. Then we met up for dinner again.
Ate some local cheap Khmer food near our hotel, pleasantly surprised there are cheap local eats nearby.
Strolling around Siem Reap at the river front was nice and pleasant. I got a Durian smooth which wasn’t very good (powdery) but local souvenirs shops were interesting though.
Day 4
My friends went back to Phnom Penh, and I finally got some time to chill. I was pretty drained in the past days due to overeating plus non stop activities.
I had a late check out (the hotel was pretty generous in allowing 12:30pm check out time) and moved in to my next hostel ($18.64). I think interestingly it’s always cheaper to book on Agoda than booking directly via the hotel. I typically want the hotel to get more money for their hard work, but charging more for booking onsite it’s a bit annoying.
The only thing that’s on my list today was to tour the Angkor National Museum ($17). My expectation was low due to the Google reviews score. It turns out to be great.
The facility was great, and things were in order which is unheard of this part of the world. The multimedia presentations compliment with the historical texts really well. Definitely highly recommend. This really helps a lot of in putting touring Angkor Wat in perspective.
After the museum, I decided to try out a local brewery which just reopened. “local” means expats. Good beers for sure, the atmosphere was still lacking. Hopefully the owner would be fine. It must be hard.
After the brewery, I walked up an appetite a bit and decided to try some Lao noodles.
The restaurant was very friendly, and the noodles were very delicious. The complimentary tea worked really well too.
I decided to take an easy day, in part I am still recovery from the bad food the night before.
In Cambodia, things are a bit in extremes. Either you have hotels who have so much potential to create better atmosphere just decide to stay completely silent, or you have bars/hostels just blast their speakers to the maximum and scare visitors away. Is it really hard to have a middle ground?
Another thing is I really dislike hostels price themselves low on the room charge but have significantly higher food and beverage prices. Backpackers aren’t usually stupid, I am not sure if they think that’s how a successful business should be ran.
Day 5
Got up early and ready to explore, got quite a few things on my agenda for the day.
First thing is to get a motorbike ($10) and drove to Angkor Wat. Figured I’d at least get one expert guide so I agreed to this “official” tour guide.
The guide was very experienced both at taking photos as well as dumping information on me with his British accent in which he learned from monastery. He tried to get me to tour local painting shops, I am not sure if he’s trying to sell me things or just as FYI.
The Hindu stories are interesting. I guess at the end I learned where all those common names of my Indian friends are from.
Unfortunately, my guide was pretty rushed. I understand it’s still early in the day and he wanted a bigger pay than my meager $15 (I later learned you can haggle to $6). Though I thought that’s a decent price in which I didn’t even bargain (consider the local tuk-tuk would take you around for entire day for the same pay and has to pay gas) – When I was about to pay, he didn’t know what’s the price he’s supposed get paid for… I was obviously honest, but wonder how much of a ‘buffer’ in those pricing is.
Angkor Wat definitely quite some time, it’s almost 11am when I finished the complex.
A quick stop at a nearby temple.
Finally ended my Angkor Wat journey. Next was some side trips to the Landmines museum and Butterfly museum.
Cambodia was affected by the landmines relatively minor, still devastating to see people’s lives are forever changed due to no fault at their own. The museum used used to host those children, and the fund from the admission ($5) partially helped with the cause.
The butterfly museum though good, the $6 entrance fee was definitely steep. This seems to be a common theme in Cambodia where they milk foreigners in every possible ways yet still rely on aids from their home countries. Seeing the Khmar Empire’s glorious days and then compares it to the present day deterioration, it is easy to blame on the unfortunate and got caught in the cold war conflict. But, neither China nor Vietnam was exactly the fortunate during that time either. Neither is relying on aids nor trying to play being extreme poverty.
Got back to my hostel, it happened to be doing a BBQ night. Since I was craving for it earlier riding my motorbike (I saw some BBQ stand on the way to the museums, they were all gone after I finished), I decided to take a spin.
Later, I went out with a British I met at the museum. Super cool dude, unlike the typical ones who travel in packs and only care about where to find the next cheapest pubs to get drunk. This guy actually knows a lot about history and humanity (we did a trivia night at a local brewhouse). Obviously, super handsome and fit guy, too.
Day 6
It’s travel day to Battambang. I got to the bus terminal a bit early than departure time, since it’s a mini bus and everyone’s early so we departed a bit earlier than planned as well.
Road is in good condition. There were a few foreign born Khmers on the bus. One was actually from Tacoma, and the other was half Indian and they were getting married in Cambodia. I thought that was super cool. The guy served in the US Army for 11 years as well.
Time just went by very quickly and after a short rest break, we got to town. It took only 2 hours and that’s 2 hours ahead of planned arrival time.
I checked in to my hostel (private, $14.4) and went out for a walk in town. The town is quite colonial.
The weather was blazing so after about 20min, I decided to get a coffee ($2). The British mate randomly showed up there too. It’s just we were destined to hang out for some reasons.
I really wanted to drink some beers ($3.5), there wasn’t loads of pubs open due to still recovering from COVID.
We decided to take a stroll around the riverbank.
And picked a shop to eat dinner (apparently my mate got his dad’s competitive eating gene and needs to be fed every 3hrs). We had a long intellectual conversation around our understanding of the world. Determinism, free will, sexuality, human rights, etc… Super engaging, definitely not I normally would expect from a British.
We went to hostel to hang out and managed to book a half day tour with the hostel before we called it a day.
(There’s a French lady somehow didn’t know the largest country in Asia is when we asked her to guess where I am from… oh well)
Day 7
Got a late start for the day. Decided to walk around to scout a lunch location. Found a local lady selling dishes.
The lunch was fulfilling, I went to a coffee shop to get a cappuccino ($1.75)
Then I went to start my half day tour ($6) of the day. First stop was the bamboo train. ($5)
Second stop was this killing cave and bat cave.
The tour tuk tuk took us to the foot of the cave hill, after about 20min hike up, we were greeted by some nice views
Finally time to see the bat cave,
After about 40min wait, the bats finally started to come out
It’s really amazing to see the 10 million bats came out in some form of a formation.
Dinner time! (to celebrate Christmas? The people I met from the tour were into it, we went to a somewhat nicer restaurant)
We even went to a cocktail ($5) bar next to it to further enhance the experience. I think everyone’s very tired at this point even though we were complaining how lack of night life this is in Battambang.
There’s an African French guy at the pub where we saw him earlier at the Killing cave. The small world we just kept bumping into the same people again. Turned out we were staying the same hostel as well after I saw his keycard laying on the table.
We saw this sky bar still open in town, decided to take our chances to have a vee look. It’s actually pretty active on top. Just because there’s so few tourists, doesn’t mean the locals stop enjoying a nice night out.
I was so quickly fell asleep after. This also marks the end of the Cambodia series (Though, I decided to extend for one more day to avoid traveling on Christmas day and Sunday too)
Expenses
| Week 4 | ||||
| Day | Food&Drink | Lodging | Transportation | Other (tickets/tours etc) |
| 1 | $20.00 | $26.72 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| 2 | $12.50 | $31.36 | $0.00 | $62.00 |
| 3 | $1.50 | $30.00 | $0.00 | $6.00 |
| 4 | $12.50 | $18.64 | $2.17 | $17.00 |
| 5 | $23.25 | $18.22 | $12.50 | $30.00 |
| 6 | $19.88 | $14.40 | $13.60 | $0.00 |
| 7 | $19.75 | $14.40 | $0.00 | $11.00 |
| $109.38 | $153.74 | $28.27 | $126.00 | |
| Grand Total: | $417.38 |
Probably missed some minor expense like waters, etc. Need a backpacker expense tracking app!