Cambodia | trying to travel light

Siem Reap airport

So to save time, and to be at Angkor Wat to celebrate Becky’s birthday, we flew down to Siem Reap. We got visas on arrival for US$20 without any problems and the hostel we stayed at organised a tuk tuk to pick us up (for free). It was a bit of a squeeze for the three of us and our luggage in the small motorcycle tuk tuk but we managed, with Becky having to hang onto my rucksack for dear life!

By some kind of random luck there were some other people staying long-term at the hostel and it was one of their birthdays too so they were having a BBQ that evening, and they invited us to join them. We went on a quick trip to the market to pick up some food and a secret birthday cake before heading off to Angkor Wat for sunset. It didn’t quite work as planned (we didn’t make it to the temple that is the best place to see the sunset) but we walked amongst the ruins and found a nice spot by the moat to sing happy birthday to Becky, blow up balloons and eat birthday cake. I think everyone thought we were mad but how many people get to say they celebrated their 35th birthday at the 8th wonder of the world! I’m quite sure I won’t be doing anything quite as interesting on my 35th birthday.

Making a birthday wish

I think none of us had quite realised just how big Angkor Wat is, or rather how the temples are spread out over such a large area. We decided to go back the next day to see the highlights and then the following day for sunrise and to visit the actual temple called Angkor Wat. We were already feeling a bit templed out by this stage of the trip and it was also boiling hot, so we wanted to enjoy ourselves rather than just trudging around in the blazing heat because we felt we had to.

The temples are amazing and in varying states of repair. You can still see piles of bricks waiting to be sorted and restored, and we also saw lots of conservation projects in progress. Many of these seemed to be in collaboration with the Indian government. What amazed me (as someone who works in a museum) is that we were allowed to actually walk over the ruins in many parts, which gives you an amazing sense of how the temples would have been used in the past but this can’t be good for the long-term preservation of the site. One of the temples was used for filming Tomb Raider but as none of us had seen the film, we couldn’t set about pretending to be Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft!

Although we spent most of our time visiting Angkor Wat we did also find time to potter about Siem Reap, checking out the markets, eating food and drinking cheap beer and cocktails. Becky was particularly taken with the sales pitches in the market “you look, you buy”… err, no thanks… especially when all the stalls sold the same, same (but not different). I did pick up a recycled purse and a typical Cambodian cotton scarf/wrap. The stall holders were much more persistent with their sales pitches here compared with other places we’d been to.

Tomb raider was filmed at this temple

There were also lots of small children around selling postcards, bracelets etc at the Angkor Wat sites and in Siem Reap. Most of them should be in school and when you ask them why they are not in school they all tell you it is the school holidays (we knew it wasn’t). Most of these children have learnt quite a bit of English in order to sell goods to tourists and they amazed us with memorized facts about the UK (one small boy could reel off every British Prime Minister from the last 50 years or so). Anushca was met with mainly blank stares when she old them she was from Jamaica. This was the first place in Asia (on this trip) that I really noticed a lot of young children working/selling things.

We had a night out on Beer Street drinking, you guessed it, cheap beer ($0.50 a glass) and cheap cocktails ($1.50 each) and had fun despite hearing the same songs that I’ve been hearing in every bar and club since the beginning of my trip (Danza Kuduro, Moves Like Jagger etc etc). We also treated ourselves to a cheap manicure and pedicure. This was Becky’s first so she went to town with bright pink fingernails and toes!

The gang at Angkor Wat

Even though we were only in Cambodia, and only in Siem Reap, for a few days we did eventually get our heads around the dual currency system. You can pay for anything in dollars or riels (the local currency) and you get change either in dollars or riels, depending on what type of place it is. Cash machines also only dispense dollars (when they are plugged in and working that is). As things are generally cheap in Cambodia, we found it useful to have $1 bills to pay for most things.

As Becky was flying home very soon from Bangkok we bought bus tickets to go straight back. More about our cramped ride in a mini-bus in my next post.