Siem Reap

Arriving in Cambodia one thing has to be noted. It is really easy to get the visa...and just 20 $. So don’t invest to much time in getting one before (like Jakob did...trying two times the online system, including the payment. When showing it to the border guys...the price was still 20$:)).

People in Cambodia are quite poor...and u have a lot of children (it was/is school holiday there !shit!), begging and trying to sell u stuff. They can really be annoying...when they come in a group and follow u like a herd of zombies. We also bought drinks and stuff from them, but tried to pick some nice children who where to so aggressively chasing us.

The countryside is very nice. Everything is fresh, green, wet (they have a huge lake on which u can travel as well...we didn’t) and flat. Rice fields all over the country.

Our first stop was in Siem Reap. From the border u get here by taxi (12$,there is no public transport). In Siem Reap there is not much to do except the Angkor temples and the fishing villages. We did both and got our own tuk-tuk driver for 13 $ a day. Due to road conditions we just visited the fishing village close by. It is nice to visit, but people there are very poor and the water was quite low (high tide is in October...and it didn’t rain so much in the wet season this year, till now) . The tour is also not very cheap (20$ per person), but it was interesting even though and not as touristy as described in the Lonely Planet.

In the afternoon we got ur tickets to the Angkor Temples (if u by them the afternoon before...u get the afternoon free entry and don’t have to wait in lines the next morning). After climbing on of the temples that was supposed to be the best for watching the sunset...we saw some clouds and went home, when it got dark. The next morning, we got up at 4 am and went for the sunset at Angkor Wat...clouds again.

But nonetheless. The site is amazing and the temples are really nice to visit...we stayed nearly 10 hours in the area, and did some crazy climbing to get to the top of the highest temple (50m)...it has very very narrow and steep steps:).

Except sightseeing u can also enjoy ur holiday at night in Siem Reap. Even though it is very touristy u can get a beer for 0.5 USD and one hour massage for 7$ (we did both...the massage is better than the beer!:)).

Just getting back to the beer again...the biggest brands in the countries we traveled are Tiger (Thai), Angkor (Cambodian) and Saigon (Vietnam). My favorite is Tiger...but the are all ok, not as bad as Heineken :). And not to forget food...in all countries we traveled so far u can have a decent Asian meal for 1-3$, including some very good seafood. Malte doesn’t mind what kind of food...there must just be enough chili sauce on the table :).

After Siem Reap we made our way to Phnom Penh.