The Wandering Hart

Unfortunately for about half of our time in Cambodia I had some form of terrible head cold sooo a lot of time was spent resting at the hotel for this leg of the trip. That’s one thing to always be prepared for: traveling a lot often leads to someone getting sick at some point! Luckily we had planned for at least 1 full rest day before we started our temple tours anyway.

Once I was well enough to be carted around to some temples we embarked on a two day guided tour of the Angkor Wat complex. The first day focused on temples from the small circuit starting with, of course, Angkor Wat itself. We went for sunrise but honestly I don’t think it was worth getting up early. We didn’t end up with a particularly impressive sunrise (possibly due to rainy season) and I would rather have seen the temple as we approached. Still, the temple itself is of course incredibly beautiful and our guide did a great job explaining its history and current use by Buddhists.

After Angkor Wat we migrated over to Ta Prohm, which is also known as the “Tomb Raider Temple” because of its use in the Lara Croft film. Personally I thought this was even cooler than Angkor Wat and may have been my favorite of the tour. There are trees everywhere growing straight out of the temple structures! This is obviously bad for temple preservation but the intersection of nature and civilization/religion is just a really cool image.

The last temple of day 1 was Bayon Temple on the middle of the Angkor Thom complex. Angkor Thom was the capital under King Jayavarman VII and Bayon was his state temple. Lots of intricate carvings here of both war and daily life.

On day 2 we started with Banteay Srei, which is known for its intricately carved red sandstone. It’s a little further than most of the temples and isn’t technically part of either major circuit in the Angkor Wat complex but it is very popular with locals and very beautiful. We were there on a Cambodian holiday weekend so it was pretty crowded.

After Banteay Srei we hit some of the Big Circuit temples. Unfortunately we got caught in a downpour for a couple of them and to be honest they started to blend together a little at this point. Highlights for me included Neak Pean, which is hidden away across a bridge on an island in the middle of a reservoir, and Preah Khan temple, which was calm and very pretty.

In the evening after our second full day of temples we decided to go to Phare, the Cambodian Circus. The show starts at 7pm but if you ever go definitely go early at like 5 or 5:30pm for the pre-show “snack bar” and drink deals. We got more than a full meal of traditional dishes for under $10 and enjoyed buy one get one cocktails (each priced around $3-4) up until 6pm. Once we were done eating we went in for the show, which was amazing! Very impressive acrobatics set to great music. The ticket price also partially goes to education in local communities so it’s a win-win!

On our last day we started with a cooking class where I learned to cook fish amok (a local speciality), which was a lot of fun and a great way to learn while experiencing some local cuisine. In the evening we finally checked out Pub Street and had a drink along Siem Reap’s party street surrounded by music blasting from clubs on all sides. Since clubbing really isn’t my scene, we then managed to find one cocktail bar called Bar 43 along an alley and had some quieter drinks to cap off our stay in Cambodia.