Siem Reap trip: Day 2 (13 Nov)

Hello again friends. As promised, today will be much more in line with what you were expecting from a trip to Siem Reap. The day began with me awakening to my alarm at 3:00 AM and getting ready for the day before heading out to the nearby pickup point at 3:50 AM.

I was quite excited because I could actually see stars! It has been so long since I was in a place where I could easily see multiple stars in the sky.

The street which I had to cross was unsurprisingly completely deserted at this time of the morning.

As soon as I arrived at the gas station at 3:55 PM which was roughly 350 meters from my lodging, there was already someone waiting with a tuk-tuk to take me to meet the others. I had earlier booked this two-day Angor Wat tour for a cost of only $23.85 on GetYourGuide, not including the cost of food and the entrance fee to the Angor Wat protected area. For entry to the Angkor Wat protected area, which is quite vast, you have three options: $37 USD for one day, $62 for three days, and $72 for seven days. There are other admissions policies for Cambodians and long-term (minimum two years) foreign residents of Cambodia. For most people, I think the three-day pass is the best option, as one day is definitely not enough time, and seven days of temples would probably be mind-numbing for the average tourist.

By 4:10 AM I had been deposited in the minivan with our driver Nick, and then we started heading around to pick up the rest of our group. By 4:38 PM we had a total of 12 tourists in our group, a guide, and our driver. Since a couple of the participants had not bought Angkor passes ahead of time, we had to go by the visitor center to get their tickets before entering the protected area.

The big draw for Day 1 seems to be the sunrise pictures, and there were A LOT of people waiting for this even at 5:30 AM. Evidently pre-pandemic there would be like 3000 people here for this, but today there were “only” approximately 700.

Personally, I didn’t really care that much about getting sunset pictures, but since everyone else was clearly into it, I started feeling that I was missing something, so I also took several pictures from different angles.

Don’t get me wrong, YES, it is pretty, but the whole sunset thing seems a bit overrated. Nevertheless, if you are here, it is sort of an obligatory experience. I am certainly not upset that I was there for it, but I didn’t share the fervor which seems to be the standard expectation.

If you are hoping for an unobstructed picture of yourself with Angor Wat in the background, especially at sunrise, that isn’t going to happen. However, as you will see later on, a bit of Google Pixel magic eraser was able to get rid of the most annoying inclusions in the background. No doubt those proficient with Photoshop could make the picture even nicer.

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about the temples themselves today, since the guide for day 1 wasn’t very good. To be fair, it was a very cheap two-day tour, so what was to be expected? However, the day 1 guide was much more of a chaperone than a “guide”. Still, as I knew nothing about the temple complex beforehand, I did learn a bit. For instance, the main Angor Wat temple is actually originally a Hindu temple which was built around 900 years ago during a 28-year period. When Cambodia later became Buddhist, many Buddhist elements were incorporated into various of the structures. I also learned that most of the female figures found all around the structures are called Apsara; these are supernatural “celestial beings” but not deities. I think the guide also said that there were 37 steps many places, and that this has some meaning. Anyways, here are some more pictures.

The Ta Prohm temple, which is shown here in several pictures, is what brought the Angor Wat temple complex to most westerners, since there was a tomb raider film short here. Evidently there is a lot of conflict associated with the trees; many argue that they enhance the beauty of the temples, but over time they also destroy them. We were at Ta Prohm from 7:24 to 7:56 AM and then headed out to get breakfast, arriving at 8:08 AM.

My Khmer sour soup with beef and rice had a cost of $6 USD. This is a bit expensive by Siem Reap standards, but you are paying for the air conditioning and the proximity to the Angor Wat temples.

At 9:02 AM we were back in the bus headed towards Takeo temple. We arrived at 9:10 AM. Evidently the construction of this temple was never actually finished. It was nice enough looking, but after a bit, but we were not given any additional information. Still, once again, plenty of nice pictures.

Throughout the temples, it was relatively common to find these helpful inscriptions which have been extremely important to understand the original purpose etc . . . of each building.

At 9:50 AM we were back in the bus headed to the next spot. Honestly, I couldn’t understand the name. The closest I could get was Prparilay temple. I know that there were many trees there and that is also where you can see the king and queen swimming pool. I also know that the temple’s construction was never actually finished. We arrived here at 9:56 AM and left at 10:40 AM.

We continued walking from there and at 10:41 AM we arrived at the Elephant Terrace.

As far as I can tell, the Elephant terrace is just this one wall. From there were continued walking to Bayon Temple, where we arrived at 10:49 AM. This was actually a rather impressive looking site, and I would really have appreciated some actual guiding, but “the guide” just told us to wander around on our own until 11:40 AM, and he went to wait at the bus.

At 11:40 we were back in the bus, with a quick picture stop at the Buddha bridge at 11:43 PM.

By 11:50 AM we were back in the bus, with me being dropped off near my apartment at 12:21 PM. When I was dropped off, the guide told me to meet at the same place tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM. As I was quite tired and very hot, I headed directly to my lodging, arriving about 7 minutes later.

It had originally been my intent to go to a gym this afternoon, but sometime around 2:00 PM I fell asleep and did not wake up until 5:30 PM. Then after an hour of procrastination, I went out at 6:30 PM since I wanted to pay the remaining dollar of last night’s dinner and also to see a bit of the city at night.

Having wandered around a bit, including walking near the famous Pub street, at 9:04 PM I finally decided to get some food at some random restaurant near my apartment for a cost of $8 USD.

At 9:42 PM I walked back towards the apartment, arriving at 9:55 AM. I quickly showered and get into bed.

So, while day 1 of Angkor Wat was nice, I think it didn’t fully live up to my expectations, whatever those were. To be fair, much of that was because today’s guide was not especially impressive, but I was hoping that tomorrow would be better. Anyways, I guess we will soon see.

Again, for all of those who have been loyally following along, thank you for your continued interest. As always, should you have any questions or comments, just leave a note in the space provided below, and I will make sure to respond as soon as possible.