Exploring the Temples of Angkor Wat

We’ve said goodbye to Vietnam for now and have arrived at our next destination…. Siem Reap in Cambodia!

Arriving at our destination took us the better of a day as we had to deal with two flights and also a lot of waiting time in between. So it was a relief that immigration and customs in Cambodia was a breeze (specially as we had pre-arranged E-Visas)…. As we were approaching immigration, Xander ran straight through and past the immigration officer. We started calling for him to call back and the immigration officer just told Suz to go through with Eloise and Xander while I stayed behind to get all four passports stamped!

We were picked up at the airport by our hotel and taken to our destination. We were staying at a place called the Pool and Palm Villa in Siem Reap. The place is located a few minutes outside the centre of town, has some nice gardens, a great pool and good sized rooms. We stayed in a two bedroom villa which had a large lounge area with some kids toys… It didn’t take Xander long to find, play with and make a big mess of all the toys!

The next morning we arranged for an air conditioned vehicle for our private tour of Angkor Wat. Our first stop was to get our tickets (we opted for the three day tickets) and then we headed towards Angkor Thom and the Prasat Bayon.

As soon as we got out of our car, Xander was ready to start exploring the temple and was leading the way. He was happily walking around the temple area, walking up stairs and even climbing on some areas where he shouldn’t have been climbing. The Bayon temple is impressive, there are large carved faces everywhere and some very richly decorated carvings along the walls. After a while we felt we had explored enough and started heading towards the area where our driver had said he would wait for us. However, we hadn’t expected this to be so far away…

It took us a while to get to the parking area and while Suz just walked with Eloise along the main road, Xander and I walked among the ruins… What we didn’t expect though was that once we were inside the ruins there was no easy way out. We could see Suz with the driver but had no way to make it to them until we walked the entire ruin area. Ah well, that was what we had come for after all…

Our next stop was the temple in the jungle, Ta Prohm, also known as the “Tombraider” temple. We really enjoyed these ruins, the location in the jungle plus the massive tree roots runnings through the structures gives it a very unique look. After quite some exploring we got back into our car and headed to a local restaurant for lunch. It was very clearly a restaurant which catered for tourists and the drivers got commision, but still… the food was quite nice.

After lunch the driver wanted to take us to a few other temples but we decided that the little ones had enough exploring for the day. Eloise was very hot from being in the baby carrier and Xander was getting tired from all the walking and climbing so he wanted to be carried more, which started to get heavy for me as well. We bought a three day pass for a reason and decided that was enough for one day… and headed back to the hotel and the pool!

Over the next few days we spent a lot of time inside the pool at the hotel, which wasn’t too difficult as it was a great pool. Xander was getting so used to the pool that as soon as we dressed him in his swimmers and placed his swimvest on, he ran off to the pool and jumped in without waiting for us…. kept us on our toes he did!

That night we headed into Siem Reap to try out the main tourist area called, “Pub Street”. In order to get there we had to catch a Tuk-Tuk which was provided for free by the hotel. Suz and I had both been on plenty of Tuk-Tuk’s in the past, however this was the first time we had two kids with us… We were a bit apprehensive at first, but it turned out it was a very easy way to get around and Xander really enjoyed it!

The next morning it was time for us to visit the main attraction of the area, Angkor Wat! This was one of the largest temples in the area and while it’s impressive on its own, we actually enjoyed the previous two temples more. We did spend the entire morning at Angkor Wat, exploring it and when we eventually returned to the car we just headed back to the hotel for lunch and some relaxation in the pool as we were all very hot and sweaty at this stage.

One of the main sights in the area is the temple of Angkor Wat during sunrise so the next morning I decided to head out there to experience it while Suz stayed with the kids sleeping. So at 4.45am (good thing I’m used to early mornings nowadays) I caught a Tuk-Tuk from the hotel which took me back to Angkor Wat. Once I got there I realised that I didn’t have a torch and it was pitch black… well, good thing I did have my phone at least to light the way.

I made it to the lagoon in front of the temple quite early and got a spot all the way to the front. And then I realised how crazy this sunrise experience really is…. there were literally hundreds of people there trying to see the sunrise. And quite a few of them had the most impressive camera equipment and tripods setup to catch every ray of sun.

Well, unfortunately the sunrise was a dud as it was really cloudy that morning and the sun never broke through the clouds… I guess it’s a bit of luck if you’re going to get a nice sunrise or not. Either way, it was nice to have had the experience. Heading back to the hotel I had another experience, my Tuk-Tuk ran out of petrol and we ended up having to wait an extra 30min or so for a friend of the driver to arrive with some extra petrol! So, it took me a bit more time than I originally planned for…. however the kids were still sleeping by the time I got back to the hotel!

Later that afternoon we went and saw the War Museum which is filled with old tanks, airplanes, granade launchers, old mines and all sort of machine guns. We were provided with a guide who apparently had been fighting for the Khmer Rouge during the war.

Our guide told us some stories about the war which were quite interesting to hear, however we couldn’t help to wonder what else he had done during the war that he wasn’t telling us.

That afternoon was our last afternoon so we once again headed into Siem Reap for dinner and also to pick up a few small things here and there. Xander had also previously found a motorbike pancake place which he loved and wanted to go back to.

The next morning, as we had an afternoon flight, we just stayed at the pool, packed our bags and once the time was right, we started heading to the airport for our short flight to Ho Chi Minh City before our flight home to Sydney.

Funny enough though, as we got to the airport we saw that our flight had been cancelled… panic mode! There was another flight to Ho Chi Minh City that left about another hour or so later and after some enquiries we were on that flight. As we didn’t have too long of a stop over before our flight home we were a little bit worried but figured that the airline company would have to put us up and pay for hotel if they didn’t make it happen. Well, although the flight from Siem Reap was delayed as well, once we reached Ho Chi Minh City we literally half ran across the airport and just made the flight!

Cambodia was a good experience and Siem Reap and Angkor Wat is definately worth seeing… We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed ourselves. We were however not expecting the area to be SO touristic as it is. As you drive from the airport into Siem Reap town, you drive past these massive Las Vegas style hotels… and there are a LOT of them as well. So, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat might have been a quiet place once, but not anymore.