Date of travel: Oct. 4-7, 2012
I recently went on a four-day trip to Siem Reap with two friends from college to fulfill our longtime dream of seeing THE Angkor Wat. As soon as our plane landed, however, we realized that there's more to this place than the world-famous temple. It's a city you don't just swing by because it has lot of character, a lot of stories you'd have to take in. Even a week-long holiday will not suffice.
You'll simply never want to leave.
That's saying a lot considering I also come from a country in Southeast Asia, and we're supposed to have a lot in common with the Khmer (Filipinos will easily pass for Khmer as long as we don't talk). So temples aside, I shouldn't have been impressed. Yet I was.
My Siem Reap travel buddies- Istine (left) and Grace (right) -- waiting for boarding at NAIA Terminal 3.
The Siem Reap International Airport and its Khmer architecture. Right away you'd know that French is still widely spoken here because most signs are translated in French.
We left Manila at about 7:45 p.m. and we arrived in Siem Reap at 9:30 p.m. Cambodia time (they're an hour behind). We had arranged for an airport pickup with Rithy Rine Hotel weeks before our departure for Cambodia, and they did not disappoint. A tuktuk driver, who'd later introduce himself as Ponleau, met us at the airport.
On our way to the hotel, we noticed that the landscape and the houses are pretty similar to those in the Philippine provinces, so we immediately felt at home. But as we drew closer to the city center, we started seeing huge hotels with beautiful facades. Those hotels could easily be mistaken for palaces! This was the first time we noticed that while buildings in Manila tend to be tall, in Siem Reap they tend to be long and wide. We also observed that there were few cars the road, and that most people rode bicycles and motorbikes (understand that this is coming from someone from a city where roads are almost always congested with buses and cars).
One of the streets leading to Pub Street-- where most tourists dine and wind down. You'll also see herds of tuktuk drivers standing in front of the bars and restaurants waiting for passengers.
After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we headed to Pub Street for our first Khmer dining experience. I think this was the first time we got a sense of how tourist-y the city is, as almost everyone we saw at Pub Street was a foreigner. We also immediately decided that Pub Street was too noisy for our liking because of the loud music from different bars (think Gangnam Style on turbo). So we settled for Le Tigre de Papier, the least crowded and least noisy restaurant we were able to find.
Angkor Premium Beer--our first in Siem Reap.
I think after that night we understood why Pub Street gets mixed reviews from visitors (read some on
tripadvisor.com). While it's a convenient place to eat and drink because there's a stretch of restos and bars offering different cuisines and beverages, there's also see the stark contrast between the tourists dining in luxury, and the tuktuk drivers offering their services and the children selling their goods (I guess I could say that too of the prostitutes we saw beside a convenience store).
First of my only five resto meals in Siem Reap--Amok Chicken at Le Tigre de Papier.
After Pub Street, we called it a night. We were supposed to be up early the next day to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat (operative phrase: supposed to. But that's another entry.).
Labels: Amok, Angkor Premium Beer, Beer, Cambodia, Le Tigre de Papier, Pub Street, Siem Reap, Siem Reap International Airport
