Photo Traveling Southeast Asia: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our last destination in Cambodia was Siem Reap, home to the Angkor Temples. Some were just 5km from town, while others were 30-50km away. Knowing there were so many different temples and that we lacked all knowledge about them we promptly starting looking for a certified guide. After a lot of research and asking around we discovered two important facts. First, you needed a driver to bring you around to the temples as they started just 5km from town but then each temple was a few km from the next. The second bit of information was that your driver could not be your certified guide, you needed to hire both separately. This didn't surprise us at this point in our trip, as any way to separate us Westerners from our money was fair play. We decided to call for a guide first as there were plenty of available tuk tuk drivers outside our hotel. We asked the manager at the hotel where we ate breakfast (our guest house was not helpful so we ate breakfast at the one next door to ask them typical tourist questions) to call a recommended English speaking guide and dutifully they called their favorite guy, then the second favorite and then the third and then right on down the list until we were told everyone was booked. "Why didn't we hire one ahead of time? Everybody books guides weeks in advance". In three months traveling during the end of the slower season we have booked ONE hotel in advance and stayed in over 20, we certainly didn't plan to book a guide a week ahead of time. We called the Guide Training and Certification Center number and asked for a guide. There were about a hundred listed on the website so we figured it wouldn't be a problem but we might not get the best one. They didn't have any available. By this time we had finished our breakfast and were wondering if we could find our way without a guide but with a good map and a book. The lady running the hotel came over and presented a final option. Her friend in University (many young adults 18+ work during the day and go to school at night learning studies but mostly English) was doing a group guided tour and only had five people signed up, he had left already but could swing by and get us on his way! Perfect, our introduction to the Angkor Wat Temples had begun, day one. We bought a three day pass and after the day one orientation tour we set out on bicycles with water and a guide book on day two ourselves. Day three we revisited some of the main attractions and enjoyed a leisurely pace looking around the outskirts of the more popular places. The pictures below are not in order of specific time period or temple, just a collection of our favorties.

Angkor Wat

Entrance to Angkor Thom

Below is one of the oldest temples we saw and was built in the 10th century but was unique because the bas relief carvings were out of brick and not sandstone.

One of the Library buildings at Angkor Wat

Sadly, at 11am school would get out so that the young kids could go to the temples and sell goods. They spoke English and when asked if they learned in school they would tell you "no, from the tourists". They also spoke Chinese, Korean, and a few others well enough to sell goods.

The temples were all part of a National Park of sorts but interestingly there were a few homes and farms inside the general area. Outside this temple in the late afternoon locals are harvesting water plant shoots to put in soups. The temples are free for locals to visit but a three day pass for us was $40 completely understandable but amazing that people live off the same land today as they might have in the 12th century.

We are not sure what he was using his speargun for but probably frogs, not fish.

On our last day we were biking home and saw a sign for a kick-boxing match that was about to start. We had wanted to go to one in Thailand but could only find matches made for tourists. We went to the entrance and saw that this match was mostly locals and was actually a special day because it was Thailand vs. Cambodia. There was a lot of excitement and it was just as much an experience watching the locals cheer and bet as it was watching the matches.