In the Northern Hemisphere, Christmas typically elicits images of gently falling snowflakes, rosy cheeks and mugs of steaming hot chocolate. But as creatures of the tropics, the sisters could not escape the frigid cold soon enough! By Dec. 18th, both of us were happily basking in the tropical sunshine, ushering in the holiday season by toasting each other with cans of iced-cold Diet Coke.
For our family vacation this year on Dec. 22-25, we chose to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia. Although we’ve toured much of Southeast Asia, Cambodia was one of the only countries left in the area that we had not been to. We were eager to see the world- renowned Angkor Wat temples, eat cheap local food and relax with massages 1/30th of the price as in the U.S.
The Important Stuff
We chose a package tour through AirAsia, which included a round-trip flight and a 4day/3night stay at the Steung Siem Reap hotel. The US dollar is the preferred currency, and the best time to visit is in the winter months (November – March). ‘Winter’ means slightly cooler temperatures (25-32 C) and clear skies, whereas other seasons can bring rain and extreme heat, with temperatures edging up to 40 C in April. The two major airports in Cambodia are in Pnom Penh (capital city) and Siem Reap.
Day 1
We started out early by waking up at 3 a.m. to catch a 6:50 a.m. flight from Kuala Lumpur. Contrary to our initial belief that nobody in their right mind other than those on our flight to Siem Reap would be at the airport with us at such an ungodly hour, the LCC terminal was actually packed with throngs of passengers. Apparently, we were not the only ones!
Here is my sister and I with a sad Santa Claus that we saw at the airport. Malaysia is filled with skimpy looking Christmas trees and sad Santas, probably because Christmas really doesn’t carry much weight here other than as a commercial holiday. We were thrilled to travel without our heavy coats, and I was especially pleased to be able to wear my flip flops everywhere.
To stay awake and pass the time until our gate opened (since the LCC terminal only has so much space, they don’t allow you to enter the gate until a few minutes before boarding time), we made a pit stop at Starbucks, where my mom and dad each enjoyed a Rotiboy bun that we bought from the day before, and my sister and I gulped down cups of coffee.
The 2-hour AirAsia flight was uneventful, but a good tip is to know that AirAsia has a ‘no-outside food policy’ and serves up trance-inducing aromatic meals ranging from nasi lemak to curry and chicken rice, so if you’re hungry, make sure to bring some money to purchase a meal, or risk being left wistfully staring at your neighbor’s steaming plate of food.
AirAsia menu
We arrived in Siem Reap around 8 a.m. and was immediately picked up by our tourguide and driver which our hotel helped us arrange. Our tourguide was a friendly chap called Em, who collected our bags right away and took us to the hotel. Here we are on a beautiful day outside the Siem Reap airport. (Be gone, scarves and mittens!!)
We stayed at the Steung Siem Reap, a semi-boutique hotel right around the corner from the night market and Pub Street. It had wifi in the lobby and free buffet breakfast in the morning. We all agreed that the best part about this hotel, hands-down, had to be its location. Rates were reasonable and service was also extremely friendly (although the front desk forgot to deliver a morning call on our last day). Overall, we were very pleased with our stay and highly recommend this to other travelers.
View of one side of the hotel from the garden outside of the lobby
Our first activity was visiting the floating village on Tonle Sap lake. Tonle Sap means freshwater in Khmer, and this was our first glimpse at the poverty that exists in Cambodia. The country is still recovering from the aftermaths of war, which left the once-thriving kingdom economically-crippled and many years behind its Southeast Asia neighbors. The floating village housed many Vietnamese who live on makeshift floating houses and sell small goods for a living. A small boy and his mom approached us in a motor boat and tried to sell us a soda for $1 (Jie was nice enough to buy a soda and then return it later to the boy).
There were also quirky things we saw at the floating village, including a small crocodile farm, scorpion wine and a resident poison-less snake in a sack on the ground, which Em took out and let me play with.
Our first meal was at a restaurant near our hotel serving up Cambodian food. This consisted of Fish Amok (coconut-based curry served inside a young coconut with fish and veggies), mango salad, steamed fish and vegetable curry. Cambodian food is similar to Thai food, but is lighter on the spice. Everything was under $5, which made the food extremely affordable despite being in a prime tourist area.
Fish Amok and Mango Salad
This also marked the beginning of dad’s search for 'kangkong' (aka morning glory or water spinach), a vegetable that’s hollow on the inside and widespread in Malaysia. When he tried to order it, the waiter had absolutely no idea what my dad was referring to. Convinced that they had it, my dad made it his personal mission the rest of the trip to learn the Khmer word for the vegetable (we later learned it is called 'Trawkoon' in Khmer, and then proceeded to order it at every single restaurant we visited thereafter.)
Kankong aka Morning Glory aka Trawkoon
After lunch, Jie and I toured the local market, where we found $4 dresses and a variety of other souvenirs ranging from $1 - $6. We were especially fond of the fan hats. We were very pleased with our purchases!
Fan hats
After taking a nap, we met up with our tourguide again, who took us to the Cambodian crafts village, where workers are trained in sculpting Buddha statues out of stone and wood. We were introduced to the Apsara dancers, who inspired us to strike a similar pose, which was slightly harder done than imagined:
Trying to pose like Apsara dancers
At night, we ate at the Maharajah, an Indian restaurant highly touted on Tripadvisor. We ordered the chicken tikka masala, pureed eggplant and vegetable biriyani with garlic naan. We all agreed that this Indian restaurant lived up to the hype. Following our intensely flavored meal, we wandered over to get $6 massages at a massage parlour we passed by earlier. Mom and dad settled for the foot massage, while my sister and I did a head/back and foot combination.
Day 2
The next morning, we woke up in the dark of the night to catch the famed sunrise at Angkor Wat. By this point, we felt that we were beginning to slowly turn into vampires, given our regimen of waking up before the sunrise. Em and our driver came to collect us and the hotel handed us doggie bags with our breakfast inside to take with us since it was too early to eat at the restaurant. When we arrived at the gates of the temples, each of us had our pictures taken to obtain a 1-day temple pass to show each time we entered a new temple. Em took us to the main sunrise viewing location. It was a challenge to climb the walls and arrive at our prime viewing spot in pitch darkness, but we managed to do so without a hitch. We were reminded of a previous experience of watching the sunrise at Yang Ming Shan in Taiwan, except there were fishball and noodle vendors there accompanying us as well. After we arrived, throngs of other tourists with their fancy DSLRS cradled in their arms joined us.
With our temple passes
Around 6:30, the entire area began to brighten, but there was still no sign of the sun. We decided to walk toward the temple, and began snapping photos of the temple with its reflection from the pool. My sister and I concluded that 2 elements make a good temple or palace design: a pool in front of the building which gives off a reflection in photos, and a unique silhouette to make a pretty sunrise or sunset picture. By almost 7 a.m., we realized that the clouds were preventing a clear image of the sun, so we headed over into the temples before it became even more crowded.
Angkor Wat
The Angkor Wat temples are truly majestic and Em explained that over 100,000 people worked together to build it. While Em explained the history and stories behind the sculptures on the walls, mom, sister and I started having fun snapping pictures:
Trying to listen to the tourguide but really wanting breakfast
To our dismay, the breakfast boxes were left in the car, and our tourguide was taking a leisurely time explaining every single detail of Angkor Wat’s history while the four of us were starting to slowly waste away, as we began to feel light-headed and weak in the knees after being awake since 4 a.m. without any food. Dad began yawning incessantly, and we were getting worried that he would fall asleep soon if he didn’t eat something. Luckily, mom brought some pineapple tarts with her and that became our temporary source of sustenance. Another tip for future visitors viewing the sunrise: bring a snack! We finally realized that the tourguide was stalling, because the elevated temple area didn’t open to visitors until 8 a.m. so he wanted to bring us there before we left. At 8 on the dot, we hustled in line and climbed an extensive set of steps to the top to see magnificent views of the landscape and temples below. After catching the views, we were very relieved to hurry down the steps and return to the car so that we could retrieve our breakfasts and eat our much anticipated food.
So hungry
Following Angkor Wat, we visited Angkor Thom, which is famous for temple structures that have faces on all 4 sides. This was one of the coolest temples, and we took many interesting photos, including this series dubbed ‘vis-à-vis’ by dad:
Angkor Thom
After Angkor Thom, we stopped by the site of the King’s old palace, where only the swimming pool was left. Our guide gave us a handy fact, which was that the King had over 2,000 concubines. We were all pretty impressed by this.
After lunch, we decided we only needed to see one more temple before we were ready to collapse, and this was Ka Prohm, one of the sites where Lara Croft – Tomb Raider was shot. The temple is unique, because it is filled with roots of trees which basically eroded the entire temple and caused the walls to crumble. According to our guide, 20% of the destruction was due to man (i.e. looting during the war) and 80% was due to nature (i.e the trees). Seeing the monstrous snake-like roots thrust through the boulders and blocks of stone was truly eye-opening and showcases nature’s dramatic prowress.
Ka Prohm
We spent the rest of the evening and afternoon visiting the night market and getting more massages
Day 3
On the last day, we were finally able to sleep in and our guide took us to a farther temple called Beng Melea. This temple was basically a whole bunch of ruins and we were able to tour it only by climbing massive boulders:
Beng Melea
There were also numerous ‘hammocks’ which were vines of trees that our guide invited us to climb up so he could help us take photos.
On our way back, we passed by a few sellers of ‘bamboo rice’ which is essentially glutinous rice stuffed in bamboo with sweet coconut milk and beans and baked over a fire, resulting in a sticky, fragrant sweet rice, covered with a crispy, sugary layer. It was a fabulous snack for the car trip back. We also spotted a car that made ‘over-capacity’ an understatement – there were about 30 people hanging onto the back of the truck together atop of a layer of bamboo sticks.
After lunch, we stopped by a local market to see where locals shopped. We decided that we were more comfortable with the tourist markets! Some of the more interesting things we spotted include miniature watermelon and stand after stand of mini bananas.
In the evening, we wandered back to the night market and stumbled across a restaurant I had heard of on tripadvisor. In fact, it is ranked the number 1 restaurant in Siem Reap. This restaurant was called Chamkar and is a vegetarian restaurant that focuses on using organic, sustainable food. We also discovered a trendy alleyway with many cute stores supporting Cambodian women and youth.
We also found another great snack, which is the ‘Pancake Banana Milo’ and essentially a roti covered with banana slices, doused in milo powder and drizzled with condensed milk, then wrapped like a burrito. One bite, and the crispy skin, coupled with the melted milo and sweetness of the condensed milk had me sold!
Pancake Banana Milo
We then treated ourselves to a $1 Dr. Fish massage, the last type of massage we had yet to try. It involves getting your feet nibbled by a special type of fish who are supposed to bite off the dead skin in your feet, bringing with it a host of benefits. Whether there really are benefits is doubtful, but the experience was worthwhile and one of the grossest things I have ever experienced:
Dr. Fish Spa
We finished off the night and ended our trip with our delicious meal at a vegetarian / oganic restaurant called Chamkar which far exceeded any of our expectations. The food was light, flavorable and refreshing, a nice contrast to the heaviness of the curry in our previous meals. We also enjoyed the ambience of the restaurant, which was tastefully decorate and simplistic. Merry Christmas!!!
Signed, Mei
