Our time in Phnom Penh came to an end…we were ready to be done with the big city…looking forward to getting out of town. The most common ways to get from from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is by taxi/car, bus or fly. But Todd was googling and found out that we could take boat through the maze of rivers and estuaries to Siem Reap. He booked us a one way trip on a skinny river boat for Saturday morning!
It was an 8:30 am departure…and even though the guy sent us the google map to the dock, was not easy to find. The GRAB guy dropped us off at a hotel, where the sidewalk took us around back to a huge outdoor wedding happening; we jumped past the barrier and made our way to the Riverwalk to find the boat! There also wasn’t a dock…it was 45 degree angle of steps down (with luggage) to a flat concrete pad to another set of 45 degree stairs to the boat. Regardless, we got there in time and the boat departed 15 mins later.
The sail thru the rivers was so cool…we have never seen so many fishing nets…in the beginning the captain tried to avoid them, but soon he just plowed over them. Around the 4 hour mark the captain stopped the boat and jumped into the water with a knife to cut the nets off the prop!
We were told that might happen due to the shear number of nets in the rivers and lakes. There are so many obstacles for him at points along the way, sometimes he just honked his horn and kept on going…get out of the way we were coming!
It was an 8 hour journey in total…we saw kids, families, husbands and wives, brothers, sisters of all kinds fishing on all types of boats and floats…it was very cool. We saw families living on the banks in floating houses, stilted houses and anything that resembles a house. Half the journey was through Sap river and the other half was through Sap lake.
Coming in to Siem Reap we got to see the floating village….everything floats here: houses, basketball courts, gas stations, grocery store, police station and this was so cool!
What a memorable day! It goes down in the travel books as pretty epic!
While onboard, a YouTuber was recording content for his channel and for the boat company…we made a few appearances on the video and have a short interview with him late in the video, you can check that our here: Cambodia River Cruise
Our first full day in Siem Reap was a check it out kind of day. We didn’t commit to anything other than walking around and checking things out. Although every 5 seconds we were asked if we needed a Tuk Tuk ride somewhere…the Cambodians don’t understand that we like to walk. We would rather walk 6 blocks than take a ride. Across the river from our hotel is the main central market, tones of restaurants and a Pub Street. The river is where everything comes alive around 5 pm. All the pop up carts arrive and tables and chairs get setup and when sunset hits, all the street lights come on and its pretty magical! We noticed in Siem Reap that food and drink was significantly cheaper than anywhere else we had been so far.
The next day we lined up our Tuk Tuk driver to take us on a half day tour of the Angkor Wat Temples. The site is the world’s largest religious monument, covering 162.6 hectares. Built in the early 12th century by King Suryavarman II, this UNESCO World Heritage site was initially a Hindu temple before transitioning to Buddhism. It is renowned for its Khmer architecture, towers, vast bas-reliefs, and a surrounding moat.
Our private tuktuk guy Savy picked us up at 8 and drove us around to the big 3 temple sites. We hired a certified guide for the Angkor Wat temple, who was also an amazing photographer. It was beyond overwhelming to listen to the history, the characters, and see it come alive in the temple. Our brains were on overload and he took us through the speed tour as well! We opted to just do a self guided for the next two sites. In total we saw the 3 main temples and we were done; hot, tired, hungry and sore feet! It was a mind blowing historical awe inspiring archeological tour day that we loved.
Our last full day in Siem Reap had us heading out in our tuktuk at 8 am to the Landmine Museum. The guy that started the museum was forced into the Khmer Rouge at 10 years old. His job was to plant the landmines…and fight the enemy.
After all the various wars in Cambodia, when life was becoming more stable, innocent people were being blown up from landmines still in the ground…so over the last 30 years this same guy became an expert at removing them, conducting training and awareness on what to do if you see one and he turned his house into a care facility for orphaned kids who lost limbs from land mines . It was another heart wrenching place.
After that we headed to a ceramic museum another half hour down the road…ceramic museum sounds lame but it was actually cool! They discovered these underground ceramic kilns from the 12 the century. This stop was also an excuse to get out of the tuktuk…there are no shocks and our butts were numb!
The last stop of the day was a silk farm…this was supercool! We had a private tour of the entire facility from the cacoon room, to the unwinding room, to the tie and die room to the weaving room. From the time the silkworm egg is laid, it takes between 25-27 days for it to form a silk cocoon and then die.
This is a long video, but goes thru most of the silk making process: Cocoon-to-silk-making.html and this one is more on patterns and the looms: silk-patterns-and-weaving.html
This place was so amazing…we both left there feeling surprised at how much we learnt!
Our final evening was spent at the Phares Circus… Cambodian version of Cirque de Soleil. It was a great evening of entertainment and food including Khmer food stalls, happy hour cocktails, a kids Khmer dance troupe and the main event. Kids-dance.html
This was probably our most action packed day from start to finish ….tomorrow we depart for Phu Quoc; a tropical island in Vietnam for some well deserved R n R.
Here are some photos, sorry I have no commentary for it, but you get music! Siem-reap-pics.html
Our overall comments on Cambodia in no particular order:
– we were surprised at the number of Europeans that live here in the winter
– the only reason we wouldn’t come back is the no beaches
– highly recommend coming here if you are in the area
– we both liked Siem Reap over Phnom Penh
– Cambodian people are so nice, very kind people
– Remember when we used to have service in Canada? Well, they still have it in Cambodia. We loved the attention to detail in the hospitality industry (carrots cut by hand, plated food on the banana leaf on the plate, cold cloths from the Tuk Tuk driver and hotel staff, folded paper napkins, etc)
– considering the decades of war and turmoil, they are very resilient people
Wow! This was so fascinating. You guys are great with the details, photos and videos.
What a life you’ve led since your adventures started. Good on you!!!