Cambodia

We flew from Luang Prabang and arrived mid-afternoon in hot and humid Siem Reap, Cambodia. The airport was still about a hour from the city center so we walked outside and requested a ride with Grab. We found that Grab only offered rides on tuk tuks from the airport to Siem Reap city center so we went with it since it was cheaper than a taxi. Our little tuk tuk pulled up and we piled in and headed to our hotel. The ride was pleasant since we had fresh air, but it was slow going and the tuk tuks mostly stay along the shoulder of the road to let the actual cars pass. We were dropped off in front of our hotel, which was nicer than our usual accommodations since we used Mel's points on this one to stay for free. The hotel was in a nice quiet location east of the river that cuts through the city, but still close to the city center. We checked in, received our complimentary welcome tea and snack, and admired our fancy room and the hotel's nice pool. We had dinner that night at a place just down the block called Tevy's Place which we would return to many times. The restaurant had delicious local cuisine, and the owner of the restaurant, Tevy, who lost much of her family during the Khmer Rouge rule, now operates this restaurant and works to empower other women with her almost all-women staff. We tried two popular Cambodian dishes- fish amok and lok lak with Khmer beef. The meal was delicious and very cheap which we paid for in USD. Fun fact, Cambodia uses the USD but also has their own currency called the Riel, which is usually only used in low amounts. The USD paper had to be near perfect otherwise people would not accept the money which was similar to what we encountered when we got our Laos visa's. We could even pull USD out of ATMs in Siem Reap! After dinner, we stopped at a market to buy some breakfast and snacks, and we splurged on a jar of Skippy peanut butter; it had been almost impossible to fine peanut butter for months now so we were pretty pumped. When we got back to our nice air conditioned hotel, we purchased our Angkor Wat complex tickets online that would allow us to visit for three days and tried to figure out what to do about our Vietnam visas that we had accidentally forgotten about until we were in the Luang Prabang airport....we had submitted our visa applications on Thursday afternoon and our flight was on Wednesday morning. Originally, we thought we would be fine since the visa is supposed to take 3 days, but when we looked into it more, we realized it was actually "3 business days" but in reality, people online said it can definitely take more, and is typically more like 5 business days. We realized if it took any longer than 3.5 business days, we were going to be screwed since you can't board the flight to Vietnam without the approved visa, and there is no option for a visa on arrival in this case. We searched online and found a few legitimate websites that allowed you to expedite your visa, but they were all very expensive depending on how soon you needed the visa (anywhere from $100-$300 each). We knew this was a last resort option, but decided to keep looking and Carson found a bunch of posts on Reddit recommending someone named EmilyVisa who helped a ton of people get their visa application expedited. We decided to message her on WhatsApp and told her when we needed our visa by and she said no problem. She told us she could do it for $25 USD each, way less than the other sites. Since she accepted payment via PayPal which is a secure website, we figured it was worth a shot before we decided to pay way more for a different option. We sent her the money and went to bed crossing our fingers and putting our faith in the Reddit community.

The next morning, we woke up early to begin day 1 of our Angkor Wat adventures. We met our tuk tuk driver Mr. Kat and our English speaking tour guide Lin outside our hotel. Carson had done research and found Mr. Kat recommended on Reddit; he had great reviews as a driver and guide around Angkor Wat, so we messaged him and reserved him as our guide a few weeks ago. He was super responsive on WhatsApp, and had previously sent us his recommended 2-day itinerary to see the main sites and avoid as many crowds as possible. He even coordinated getting us the English-speaking guide, Lin, for the first day when we would visit Angkor Wat and some of the other main temples. Mr. Kat also spoke pretty good English and had a lot of information about the history of all of the sites, but it turns out you have to be an officially licensed tour guide to enter the temples, so Mr. Kat could not join us inside. All this to say, we were really excited to meet Mr. Kat, and were glad he had a recommended route for us since it was pretty overwhelming trying to understand which temples to visit and when since the the complex is over 400 acres!

We hopped in the tuk tuk and Mr. Kat drove us and Lin toward the first temple we would visit, Ta Prohm. Along the way, Lin gave us a brief overview of the history of the Khmer Empire and the ancient city of Angkor. We learned that the Khmer Empire lasted from 802 to 1431 CE, and was huge. At it's peak, this empire covered much of what is now Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and southern Vietnam. It's capital was Angkor, the city we would be visiting, and at its peak, this city was home to nearly 1,000,000 people, making it one of the most populated cities in the pre-industrial world! The cause of the fall of the empire and eventual abandonment of the city and its temples for centuries is still debated, but by many is thought to have occurred due to a combination of factors. The first being the sack of the city in 1431 by the Thai Ayutthaya Kingdom, but a more recent explanation being potential climatic effects- scientists have shown that Angkor's demise may have also been due to a prolonged drought punctuated by intense monsoons that partially destroyed the city's water-preservation infrastructure in the century leading up to the city's sack. While the empire still thrived, it also saw different religions take root. Originally Hindu, the official religion of the empire changed to Buddhism during the 12th century, and eventually the state religion shifted back to Hinduism. These religions coexisted and influenced Khmer culture at many points, and as we would see, many of the temples served as both Hindu and Buddhist temples at some point int their histories.

We arrived to our first temple, Ta Prohm, which is a Buddhist temple that was built starting in 1186 and is dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII (aka J7- you'll see his name a lot). Like the other temples in this complex, Ta Prohm was abandoned after the fall of the Khmer Empire in the 15th century until the rediscovery and restored in the 20th century. Due to the centuries of neglect, nature had reclaimed the temple grounds, and there are trees growing within the temple and its courtyards, with roots even breaking through the stonework. It gave it a very unique and beautiful atmosphere. As we walked through the temple, we noticed that there were not a lot of Buddha statues and we learned from Lin that it was because they were taken down, carved out, looted, and/or beheaded in later years. Looking closely at the walls, you could see missing pieces that were once Buddhas. In one of the courtyards, we stopped at a tree where a famous movie scene from Tomb Raider with Angela Jolie was filmed. Lin also pointed out a unique craving on the western wall of what looks to be a dinosaur mixed in with carvings of other animals. This relief has posed a mystery, as it's not clear if it is a dinosaur, and if it is, how the Khmer people would have known about them- did dinosaurs actually coexist with humans? Did they uncover a dinosaur fossil and recreate it? Is the carving actually depicting a cow or other animal that just looks suspiciously like a dinosaur? Is it actually just a modern day hoax? We may never know!

We exited out the west gate of Ta Prohm and Lin took us along a secluded path through the jungle which was a more fun and unique way to see an outer wall entry gate of the temple that must people don't see. When we came out of the woods about a mile later, we found Mr. Kat waiting for us in the tuk tuk and her greeted us with ice cold water and menthol-oil soaked cold towels (a complete GAME CHANGER for beating the heat!!!). We jumped back into the tuk tuk and drove about 15 minutes to Bayon Temple located within Angkor Thom, the ancient capital city of the Khmer Empire. Angkor Thom was built in the shape of a square and composes an area of about nine square kilometers. It was a city within a city, and at its peak it's estimated that 100,000 people lived within the city walls. On our way to the temple, we passed through the impressive Victory Gate, one of the five entrance gates to Angkor Thom (more on this later).

We arrived at Bayon Temple, a Buddhist temple built in the late 12th century by J7 and located in the center of Angkor Thom City. The temple is very unique; from afar, it kind of just looks like a large pile of rubble, but as you approach, you can see that it is composed of dozens of towers with over 200 smiling stone faces on all sides of the towers. There are different schools of thought about who the faces are meant to represent, with some people thinking they represent Buddhist deities, while others think they represent the Hindu god Brahma (while J7 was a Buddhist, there is a lot of intersection between Hindu and Buddhist imagery and beliefs in the Angkor period), and still others think they represent J7 himself, who was probably considered to be a God-king. We stopped and took in this beautiful temple from a pond on its northeast side while there were still few tourists about. Monkeys (macaques) were climbing all around the temple and grounds and are apparently the only remaining residents residing in Angkor Thom City. We walked through the main entry to the temple with Lin and immediately turned left to look at the outermost wall. This wall known as the outer gallery depicts carvings of historical events and scenes of everyday life. There were epic depictions of farming, marching to battle, naval battles, people that were both Khmer and Chinese, animals and more, all carved very delicately from stone. We walked around the whole outer wall and then went further into the temple to look at the inner galley which was added by J8 (the next king who aggressively restored the kingdom to Hinduism) and had more Hindu depictions with Apsara (dancers), Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. At last we exited the temple on the western side and started to walk to the next temple, Baphuon, that was a short distance away.

When we arrived at Baphuon, Lin explained to us the history of this temple. It was built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Shiva in the 11th century before the city of Angkor Thom was even established. As with most temples in Angkor, it was eventually converted to aa Buddhist temple in the 15th century, and Buddhas and other relics are also present here. Lin waited for us at the bottom while we climbed up the “temple-mountain”. We walked up the entrance steps and started to understand why it was known as a mountain with how steep the steps were. As we neared the top to reach "heaven", the steps were more like a scramble since they were about 6 inches wide. At the top, we had great views of Angkor Thom City. We climbed down the temple and walked with Lin to Phimeanakas Temple aka the "Emperor's Temple" or “Celestial Temple” which is located in the Royal Palace complex of Angkor Thom City. This 10th century Hindu temple was the place where legend says the king would climb the stairs every night to lay with the Naga princess. We walked around to the eastern side of the temple and then walked out the front gate to the Terrace of the Elephants, named for the life-sized carvings of elephants along its length. Back in the heyday of the city of Angkor Thom, this terrace was as a giant viewing stand for public ceremonies and served as a base for the king’s grand audience hall. It also joined the road leading to the Victory Gate where the king would welcome his returning army from war.

We met back up with Mr. Kat who greeted us with cold water and some much needed cold menthol towels and we jumped into the tuk tuk. As we cruised eastward we once again passed through Victory Gate, but this time we made a stop. This is the main gate directly east of the Phimeanakas temple, and is named because it is where Khmer empire troops would march back through when returning from battle. The gate is very impressive with the stonework of the arch covered in moss, but the carved stone faces still visible and presiding over the city walls. Similar to the other four gates to Angkor Thom, the gate is next to a moat with a stone causeway that is lined with a grand naga railing being pulled by 54 stone giants, Asuras and Devas, representing the constant tug of war between good and evil and the ‘Churning of the Sea of Milk’ from Hindu mythology. These statues are pretty deteriorated at this gate, but are still in better condition at another of the gates.

Just in front of Victory Gate is also the Ancient Bridge, which was made to cross the river and still stands today but is not used for vehicle traffic. We continued down the more modern road and got out of the tuk tuk to see the massive Ta Keo Temple. This Hindu temple was constructed in the 10th century by J5 and had a different look to the others. The temple has three large grey towers with red bricks as the base. We climbed up without our guide to get a look and like the other temples, these stairs were also super steep.

After Ta Keo, we headed to the main event: the temple of Angkor Wat. We started at the large moat at the eastern gate. This moat, which was hand-dug, is 13 feet deep, almost 600 feet wide, and about 3 miles in perimeter. On top of this, the moat apparently held massive crocodiles back in the day; we knew they weren't there anymore, but we couldn't help looking into the water as we walked across the bridge just to make sure. The eastern entrance was not the main access point of the temple, so there were a lot less tour groups on this side of Angkor Wat. We slowly made our way in and along the way looked at the intricate carvings on the stones with the most famous being the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (yep, the same one depicted at the gates to Angkor Thom). As we explored the temple, Lin explained to us the history of this famous temple. Built in the 12th century as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu, it is considered the largest religious structure in the world! As with other temples in the Angkor complex, it was also used as a Buddhist temple as the religion of the Khmer empire and its kings changed. We made our way into the temple and climbed up the towers to get views looking out at the grounds. As we looked around, there were areas that were clearly original and some that had been restored. There were some areas on the towers that were discolored, and Lin told us this was actually damage caused by a cleaning technique that ended up being harmful to the stone. We couldn't believe it, and he said it was a big controversy so now the restoration techniques are under much more scrutiny. We came back down and saw the library and some buildings under restoration. We then exited the temple on its western side and the large open grounds in front of the temple that has two smaller ponds out front surrounded by palm trees. We got to see different views of the temple from out front and then exited the main entrance where we got see that one of the gates was specifically designed for elephants to enter and exit. We crossed the last bridge on the western side and found ourselves outside of Angkor Wat and were just in awe looking back at it. The sheer size and beautiful design of something created so long ago was just astonishing.

After capping off an amazing day with the amazing Angkor Wat, we hopped back in the tuk tuk and Mr. Kat dropped us off back at our hotel. We dropped off our things, cooled off for a bit, and then headed to dinner. We were really craving Mexican food, and we were finally in a city with a lot of international cuisine thanks to the number of visitors it receives, so we found a taco/burrito place with pretty solid reviews. We walked there and on the walk realized how busy and bright Siem Reap is once you cross the river from our hotel. The chicken and beef burritos we got were very good and by far the best Mexican food we had since leaving the USA. We went back to the hotel and called it an early night since we had a very early morning the next day.

Mr. Kat picked us up in the tuk tuk very early the next day so we could get back to Angkor Wat for sunrise. Having done this many times, Mr. Kat knew exactly where to go and we were the first people to walk into the temple that morning! Mr. Kat even showed us where to set up so we had a perfect spot by the southern pond that would give a perfect reflection of the temple. People slowly started to flood around us but we held our ground and waited about an hour until the sun started to rise. Sunrise originally looked promising, but then the clouds dispersed. It wasn't as colorful as we hoped, but we were still gifted with a beautiful clear reflection on the pond of Angkor Wat. We enjoyed the view for a while and then left as the crowds continued to pour into Angkor Wat.

Once we got back to the tuk tuk, we told Mr. Kat we wanted to customize our itinerary and re-visit some of the temples we saw the previous day along with some new ones that Mr. Kat liked. Mr. Kat was onboard, and started by taking us through the South Gate of Angkor Thom which had all three faces of the entry arch almost fully intact and stone elephants in good condition on each side. We continued into the ancient city and made a pit stop back at Bayon Temple where there was almost no one but monkeys hanging around at this early hour (all the people were all at Angkor Wat). We snapped some pictures, gave the monkeys a wide berth, and were back on our way. Next we stopped again at Ta Prohm (Mel's favorite of the temples so far) and took different walking paths around the temple than we did the previous day, discovering new trees growing on walls and intricate stonework. The heat of the day was already hitting us at this point, and when we got back to the tuk tuk, Mr. Kat greeted us with out favorite menthol towels and a cold water.

Next Mr. Kat drove us to a new temple called Ta Nei, outside the walls of Angor Thom, but not far from Victory Gate. It was a bumpy ride down a dirt track through the jungle to get there, and it felt like we were getting far away from everyone (it's actually called the "hidden temple" for this reason). After about 10 minutes, he parked the tuk tuk and walked with us through the temple ruins and explained its history; the less visited temples are more chill about who can enter, so Mr. Kat was able to guide us around this one even though he isn't an "official" guide. This temple was also built by J7 in the late 12th century and dedicated to Buddha. This temple is in a much more ruined state than the others we had visited, and reconstruction had just recently started on parts of it. While it was still possible to walk through some sections, many parts of it had collapsed, and there were many trees growing out of it similar to Ta Prohm. It was really magical, and we were the only visitors at the time of our visit! Mr. Kat mentioned that there are often pileated gibbons (an endangered animal in the ape family) in the jungle around the temple so we started trekking along one of the jungle paths to try and find them. Mr. Kat led us about half a mile down the path to at an old French dam that was still in use, but unfortunately we didn't spot any gibbons.

We got back into the tuk tuk and then went to the temple of Banteay Kdei, another Buddhist temple commissioned by J7. This temple was smaller and also unrestored, and has a massive tree in the middle of the temple and which was a highlight. After a short stop at Banteay Kdei temple, we walked across the street to the large reservoir of Srah Srang. This reservoir, which measures 700 by 350 meters, was hand dug in the 10th century, and later modified by J7. Incredibly large, we were shocked to learn that the purpose of this massive pool was simply the royal bath exclusively used by the king (a bit excessive if you ask us).

We got back in our tuk tuk and Mr. Kat drove us to the next temple- Pre Rup. This Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva was built in the 10th century and had a similar mountain design to Ta Keo Temple. The name Pre Rup translates into English as “turn the body” and it’s believed that funerals took place here. In fact, it’s thought that the whole building was a giant ancient crematorium. Pre Rup was also constructed of a beautiful orange/red laterite and bricks which gives it a unique look. After Pre Rup, we stopped for a quick lunch of fried rice and then continued to our next stop- East Mebon. Smaller but with a similar design to Pre Rup and known as its twin temple, this is another 10th century Hindu temple dedicated to the god Shiva. The main draw of this temple these days are the large intact elephant statues on the 4 corners of the temple. Mr. Kat also told us that East Mebon was originally built on an artificial island in the middle of another ancient reservoir, but that reservoir is now dry, so the temple is more accessible.

We continued on our journey of the outer temples (outside Angor Thom) with our next stop being Ta Som. This is another smaller Buddhist temple bult by J7 that historians believe was dedicated to the king's father. One of the unique parts of this temple is the large tree growing over the eastern entrance to the temple; the way this tree has grown and draped its roots over the entrance is beautiful; however, due to the weight of the tree, the top was cut off so its not as pretty anymore as the trees growing in Ta Prohm. Ta Som was located on the eastern edge of the North Baray (another ancient water reservoir that still has water in it), and our next stop was a unique temple built on an artificial island within the reservoir. Mr. Kat drove us to the north side of the North Baray where we walked along a long bridge to the island in the middle. There were many pink lotuses and lily pads in the reservoir, so the walk across the bridge was very pleasant. We arrived to Neak Poan temple on the island. This unique Buddhist temple was built in the 12th century by, you guessed it, J7, and was believed to have functioned as a hospital. There in a main square pool surrounded by four smaller square pools that were said to represent wind, fire, water and earth, and it was believed that bathing in these pools would cure diseases.

We walked back to Mr. Kat who greeted us with some cool refreshments and headed down the road to a much larger temple, Preah Khan. Mr. Kat dropped us off at the eastern entrance, told us about the temple's history and suggested how to walk through it and what to look for. This temple was dedicated to J7's father and built in the 12th century. Here there are still some intact Buddha sculptures that were not removed. There were also secluded intact statues of J7's wives that are still very popular sites for offerings and prayers, particularly by women. The temple was long, flat, and linear in design. It was also designed with pathways where the sun would perfectly shine beams of light into certain places like the holy sword and cause unique reflections of light. We exited the western side of the temple where Mr. Kat then drove us to the North Gate of Angkor Thom. The North Gate is the most intact gate and has beautiful trees growing near the stone faces.

We were exhausted by this point so we elected to call it a day, and Mr. Kat drove us back to our hotel while driving past Angkor Wat on the way. He stopped at a park outside of Siem Reap were we saw dozens of fruit bats the size of an owl flying around between the trees. He also made a quick stop outside of the "killing fields" of Siem Reap where he told us more about Cambodia's more recent history including the brutal Cambodian genocide that occurred in 1970's by the Khmer Rogue under the leadership of Pol Pot. The genocide, which we had not learned about in any detail at school, resulted in the killing of 1.5 to 2 million people (nearly 25% of Cambodia's population at the time). Mel had read the book "First They Killed my Father" which is a memoir of a woman who had lived through this genocide as a child (thought most of her family did not). It was heartbreaking and very eye opening to learn about this history, and because it happened in recent enough memory it has affected virtually every Cambodian, and many people are young enough to have their own memories of this time. Mr. Kat even opened up to us about some of his personal history, and told us that some of his immediate family were killed. It was very hard to hear, but it was obvious from the Cambodian people we had met that despite the awful Khmer Rogue regime, they are resilient and very proud of their Khmer history and culture. We arrived at our hotel and we thanked Mr Kat for driving us around for the past two days and teaching us so much about the rich history of Angkor and Cambodia. We highly recommend him if you ever want to visit Siem Reap! After a long hot day, we were craving an American cheeseburger and we found a good bar near the Mexican restaurant where the burger meal included fries and a beer. Hard to say no to that!

We still had one day left on our Angor Wat pass, but it didn't need to be used consecutively so we opted to take the next day off. We relaxed at our hotel, grabbed some local Cambodian breakfast at Tevy's, and did some trip planning. We also walked around some of the local markets to see if there were any good souvenirs, but we ended up just grabbing some postcards, a pin, and a patch like usual. For dinner we had local Cambodian food again at Tevy's Place and ate more fish amok and a Khmer beef salad and then called it an early night.

The next day we planned to revisit more of the temples, but decided to do it solo. We read that exploring by bicycle was a nice option, so we took a Grab to a bike shop near Angkor Wat and rented some mountain bikes. We biked past Angkor Wat and headed back to Bayon Temple. Bayon was Carson's favorite temple (despite the cheeky monkeys) and he wanted to see it one more time. We parked our bikes and walked through the temple. Avoiding the monkeys, we took different circuits through the temple to see new carvings and views of the beautiful facial sculptures. We got back on our bikes and made a pit stop at the Elephant Terrace and Leper King Terrace. We briefly saw the Elephant Terrace on our first day, but this time we took more time to look up close at the sculptures of the elephants. The Leper King Terrace was new for us and had a small path thru the middle where there were hundreds of cravings of of female celestial beings, garudas and Naga snakes. We then biked north to our favorite gate of Angkor Thom, the North Gate. We had a brief snack while staring at the gate before proceeding on the bikes. We headed toward Victory Gate but decided to make an early turn and off-roaded to the Gate of the Dead. Similar to the other main gates of Angkor Thom, the Gate of the Dead had the same design but was the secret fifth gate to the city. After a quick visit, we headed back to the main road and biked through Victory Gate to two small temples we hadn't seen yet- Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda. Theses temples were small and nearly identical in design, but Chau Say Tevoda had a beautiful Naga bridge leading into the forest to walk on. We continued our bike tour, and made a short pitstop at Ta Keo again for some different pictures than when we were there the first time, but we opted not to repeat the climb up the steep staircase. We then biked to Ta Nei (the "hidden temple" we had visited with Mr. Kat on day 2) where we sat down in the shade for a bit and had lunch. We were determined to try and see if we could find gibbons since we missed out on them the previous visit. We started to hear them, and after about 30 minutes of looking, Melissa spotted four Gibbons (3 adults and a baby) playing around in the trees. We watched them swing from branches and play for about an hour before slowly making our way back to the bike shop. We made one final stop along the way at Phnom Bakheng Temple. This temple required a climb up a steep hill, but at the top we were rewarded with beautiful views overlooking the Angkor Wat and the Bayon complexes. We returned the bikes and headed back to our hotel where we enjoyed much needed cool down dip in the pool. To top off the great day, we also learned that our visas for Vietnam had been approved! We celebrated by getting Mexican food again since we had a feeling the rest of South East Asia would probably lack it.

On our final day in Siem Reap, we took it easy again. We got breakfast at a very local place nearby that Mr. Kat had recommended (not on Google Maps). We were the only tourists there, but the women running it was so friendly, despite neither of us speaking the other's language. The breakfast was a grilled pork dish over rice with omelet, served with a side of soup and pickled vegetables. It was incredible, and they were grilling up the pig right outside the restaurant when we arrived. The rest of the day we did more trip planning and tracked our expenses. We relaxed at our pool and read and made sure to have one final Cambodian meal before we left for the airport in the morning. We decided to send a WhatsApp message to our tuk tuk driver that originally brought us from the airport to Siem Reap to see if he would give us another ride, and he was ready outside bright and early the next day for us to catch our flight to Vietnam.

While we were only in Cambodia for a little less than a week, we really enjoyed our time. The ancient city of Angkor was absolutely incredible, and learning about this history and seeing the unbelievable scale of the temples and other structures here was absolutely worth it. There really was a magic to these places, and it was impossible not to feel captivated while walking through the ruins. On top of all of this, our experience with Mr. Kat made our time in Cambodia even more special. We would love to return to Cambodia some day and see more of the country, but we're glad that we spent the time we did soaking it all and stretching our visit out rather than rushing to see it all in one day.