<>This is a re-post from my TravelPod travel blog, I post it here so that I could share with you guys!
After coming back from my Angkor adventures, I’ve been kinda busy uploading my 1400+ of photos on facebook, with the snail-speed internet in Malaysia, it took me ages to do so 🙁 Anyways, going to Siem Reap was my first South-East Asia trip of the year and one word to describe it? AWESOME! Siem Reap is the epicentre of the tourists’ hotspot, with the Angkor temples just 7-8km away! It is a bustling town filled with people from all walks of life: from the wealthy tourists who sit comfortably in their tour buses; the locals who are hawking at the streets; tuk-tukrivers who offer one dollar rides to any tourist that passes by, it’s a vibrant town that has something to offer to any tourist or traveller with any budget or taste. Ranging from five-star hotels with limousines to cheap budget hostels, it’s like finding a needle in haystack before me and my friend settled on Jasmine Lodge, which is run by a local Cambodian family.
On the 2nd July, we set out to the LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) at around 5am for our 7am-flight to Siem Reap.
. As the airplane was descending, I could see endless paddy fields and boundless stretch of barren lands with muddy tracks. Once we had landed, we rushed out to the arrival hall as the flight was delayed for more than half an hour, and we have requested for an airport pick up with the guesthouse (most guesthouses have this service available to their guests for free provided that you have to book in advance on the internet). To my surprise, there were countless tuk-tuk drivers holding cardboards with names on them, awaiting for their respective customers. I managed to locate our driver, Phat, who is extremely friendly and helpful. Riding on a tuk-tuk is the most pleasant thing I remembered from the trip, cool breeze gently swept past our faces in the hot sun. How invigorating is that! Jasmine Lodge is a three-storey high bungalow and has a thatched roof-top restaurant which serves a hangout place for us.
We took the three day package which includes full-day transportation and lodging and it only cost us an affordable 40USD! So, for the first day Phat took us to the Psar Chas where the locals sell their fresh produce and some other touristy products: shirts, silk products, souvenirs etc. which reminds me of the pasar pagi (morning market) in Malaysia.
Riding on a tuk-tuk has its downsides too, after a day’s ride, our faces were covered with dust and dirt, with the incredibly high humidity there, the continual process of perspiration and evaporation of the sweat, making our skins sticky and especially uncomfortable, and break-outs started to attack my face!!
! ARGHHH! Enough said on my zits, I digress.
In June comes the Cambodian wet season, fortunate enough for us, it’s the low season for the tourism industry in Cambodia, so we could get away with the maddening crowd. However, we still saw a load of tour groups from Japan, Korea and China, and well, they would often spotted with their OH-LOOK-AT-MY LV,GUCCI, PRADA,etc bags…The good thing is they come and go like a swirl wind and would not stop at a place for more than an hour, we could have the temples by ourselves and one could easily find a spot which you could immense yourself in a world of your own, well, I did, imagining myself being an explorer, trespassing into some ancient lost world. For a fleeting moment, I wish time would stop…right at that moment…when everything seemed so surreal…I still couldn’t believe I’m actually in Angkor Wat.
