Cambodia Hotel Reviews

You always need taxis in Phnom Penh, so the location is not really a problem. Go to the Russian Market and see one of the most nicest tourist markets in Asia. Very cheap souvenirs. Silver Pagoda, King''s Palace an National Museum are average. Not to compare with temples in Bangkok. Two days are enough for sightseeing in Phnom Penh.

The museum has a beautiful collection, particularly the stuff from the Ankor area. The palace is okay. The markets are horribly hot, smelly and crowded. The people were always friendly and helpful. The chef at the FCC does great food and it''s a fantastic location to watch the world and the rivers go by.

The FCC is close to the fantastic museum and the Royal Palace so it''s a good place to go for a meal or a drink while you''re in the area. Don''t miss it though, it''s got lots of atmosphere and a great location if you just want to watch the world go by. The food is great - the daily menu a bargain.

Marvellous temples to be seen...good restaurants: "amok" typical but fancy restaurant, "carnets d''asie" proposes you good meals in a very nice restaurant combined with a bookstore, gifts shop (french speaking)...

The Home Cocktail restaurant on Wat Bo Road was awesome value for money...cocktails $1.80 and large beer $1.50 till 9pm....food was excellent in quality and price $1-4 a dish...seek this place out!!!

Phnom Penh is definitely worth a visit but after a couple of days I was ready to leave. There are a few places though definitely worth visiting. It''s worth getting a tuk tuk driver to take you round for the day and a fantastic way to take in the sights etc. I would recommend Tuol Sleng Museum where Pol Pot held their prisoners where they were tortured before being transported to the Killing Fields. It''s horrific to see all photos of the men, women and children who suffered there. Get a guide to walk you through but be prepared to be horrified at the events that took place. I left in floods of tears but was glad that I went to fully understand what happened. We then went on to the Killing Fields. It''s a very interesting ride to the killing fields especially in a tuk tuk but again very horrific when you get there to see the mass graves and to hear exactly what happened there.<br><br> After a morning of sadness visiting the museum and killing fields we went for lunch at a place called "Friends" which is fantastic as all the people who work there are former street children who have been given a chance in life and given a future. The restaurant is superb, the food excellent and the staff are so friendly, proffesional and amazing. I would highly recommend everyone to visit this restaurant. The Royal Palace is also an amazing sight and well worth a visit. I would recommend having a guide here to walk you through. Also have a look round the silver pagoda. There are a couple of good markets to get souveniers etc from. Central Market and also the Russian market which is really good. Also you can get some good local food at the vendors there. The best way to get around is definitely a tuk tuk I wouldn''t recommend a motorbike taxi as no one wears a helmet so for me it is just not a safe form of transport. Walking around in the day seems quite safe but be prepared to have children begging for money for food. It''s very hard to resist giving the children money but we were advised by a local girl we met against it as the money is given to the adults who then sit on the street corners gambling on cards!!! Better to buy some food from the street vendors for the children. We were advised also to be careful walking round dim lit streets in the evenings as there have been a number of muggings on tourists but I think if you are sensible eveything is fine.

Sihanoukville is very much in its infancy as a beach holiday destination and the Sokha Resort is really the only decent place to stay. There are numerous places to eat in Sihanoukville most of which are quite basic. Travel by moped taxi is quite an easy way to get around although it can be hard to find one outside the resort after dark. A visit to Ream National Park is recommended.

Siem Reap is much more westernized than I thought it would be. One could go and never eat Cambodian food because of the number of American/Western options. Pub Street is an area that has only western bars/restaurants, which is nice. But tourists should try and avoid spending all their time there as they would miss the real Cambodia.

Booked taxi driver who took me from airport, to go to Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Prison -- dirt road to Killing Fields VERY potholed, so would recommend car. Haunting experience, to be in such places -- but essential for any visit to Cambodia. Read a book called ''Stay Alive My Son'' to get the full picture of the horror of the Pol Pot years! After that, hired a tuk-tuk from outside Hotel Cambodiana to take me around for 2 days -- ask for a driver called Bhu, who is brilliant. In tuk-tuk you get the ''feel'' of Phnom Penh in a way you don''t in a car -- but be careful with possessions. I was warned all the time to hang on to my bag. Must-do''s are Russian Market, Wat Phnom, cocktails in Elephant Bar of Le Royal, lunch at Friends restaurant and Le Rits (both helping disadvantaged Phnom Penhois), shopping at Centre for Disabled Persons (Norodom Boulevard, near Wat Phnom), lunch / sundowners at Foreign Correspondents'' Club. Khmer Surin restaurant (street 57) offers great food for dinner in lovely old Khmer house with lots of atmosphere -- also surprisingly cheap! Take plenty of dollars, as money flies through your hands in Phnom Penh! I loved it there (you can still see lots of raw Indochina, rather than the sanitised version available in Asian cities such as Bangkok) and will certainly be going back.

To visit all the temples you need to buy a pass: US$20 one day, US$40 3 days, US$60 6 days. You need a passport picture! The must see: Angkor Wat, Bayon, TaProhn, the rest you can skip if you don''t have lots of time. Take 1/2 day for the Floating Village (US$13 pp)1 1/2h tour. Rent a Tuk-Tuk (US$6 1/2day) to visit the town. The open air war museum is a nice change from all the temples. AngkorWeb, opposite Provincial Hospital, for $l 1hr internet. Go to the Old market for local souvenirs. You can pay everywhere in US$, but have small notes ready. If you can, visit Siem Reap in the low season, when there are less tourists and looks less commeercial!

There are many small pubs within one block of the hotel. They are located on what is known as the "Bar Street." Additionally, there is a nice disco just over the bridge from the hotel, named Martini.

Plenty of restaurants, bars around town but obviously the main reason for visiting are the temples. The main problem is the heat, try to start early and maybe think of taking a break midday to avoid the worst temperatures.

Siem Reap''s grown dramatically since I was there 5 years ago. As a result there are a number of good restaurants to choose from Red Piano restaurant is popular and was the home-based for film crews filming ''Tomb Raider'' with Angelina Jolie. Soup Dragon offers home-made ice crean including to its regular dining options. Blue Pumpkin serves crisp baquette sandwiches and good shakes. My guide recommended the US$12 evening show/buffet at the huge ''Koulen'' restaurant. Costumes and performances of traditional dances was top notch.

Visits to the Royal Palace and of the Silver Pagoda are of course indispensable. If you look for decor items and beautiful silk, Russian market is the place to go. Shopping at NGO-supported shops also helps these organizations in their much-needed actions; they are mentioned in every good guidebook. One thing to mention for travellers going to Cambodia with young children is that it is still a very poor country deeply scarred by the civil wars and the genocide of millions. Disabled people are ubiquitous and this may be shocking for sensitive souls, although the kindness of Cambodian people highly smoothens this feeling. Also, the contrast is very strong between the ambience of the streets and the one of the Raffles, something that one has to handle.

Went to the floating villages. Worth going to. We hired a taxi for the day. Actually the taxi that brought us from the airport. It cost approx £15 for the day. You have to pay a fee at a checkpoint before getting there but this includes the boat that takes you around. The boat trip was approx 1-2 hours. The road is pretty bad getting there but you see a lot of life on the way. On the way back we went into Raffles hotel for lunch.It was worth it just to see it and it wasn''t very expensive. The taxi also took us to see the Landmines museum run by an ex Khmer Soldier. They have volunteers from this country helping there as they run a sort of orphanage for children that are amputees. It really makes you think. Very interesting place. Of course we went to see Angkor Wat. We only spent one day here and found that it was enough for us. We hired a taxi again for the day with a guide. It was 20 dollars each to get in plus 45 dollars for the taxi and guide. It was really beautiful. One other thing that we saw was a cultural dance at a hotel just two streets away from our hotel. Can''t remember the name of the hotel but it was in a 4-5 star small hotel which had a theatre next to it which I think was the National Dance Theatre. Dinner was included and it was very, very good. More expensive than most of the other shows (like double) but worth it.

We arranged a car and driver through the hotel to take us to the temples at Angkor which was $50 for two days. Our journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is worth noting. We had bought high-speed boat tickets to make the four-hour journey from Phnom Penh. When we arrived at the boat dock, we were told that there weren''t enough people to make the trip worthwhile for them, so they took the eight of us who had bought tickets on a bus to the southeast end of Tonle Sap Lake -- about a 2-hour ride. There, at a floating village, we met the boat that was bringing people from Siem Reap. After an exchange of passengers in a sort of marshy area, we were off in the boat heading toward Siem Reap. At full speed -- probably 35 mph -- it took another 2-1/2 hours until we reached the floating village near Siem Reap. We then switched to another boat, which took us to this narrow, rickety, precarious dock made of single teak planks atop bamboo poles. There, we were swarmed by taxi drivers who wanted to take us the 15km into Siem Reap. They were very forceful and really surrounded us, making us really feel uncomfortable. All of them offered the same deal: $1 for two people. The driver I chose happened to have a flat tire when we arrived at his car. That fixed, we were soon on our way down a very bumpy and muddy dirt road that seemed very remote. At that time, he asked us whether we had anyone to take us around Angkor Wat. We said we had already arranged a driver. At that point, the one-dollar fare suddenly went up to $7 -- but we were welcome to get out in this remote area and get the next taxi that came by. Since a $6 difference really isn''t worth getting into a losing argument about the principle of the matter, I acquiesced to the sudden price hike and in a good-natured way tried to argue the Buddhist philosophy of lying about the price to lure customers in. He explained that all the drivers do the same, and that was the only way to get people''s business. Pretty sad, but he did get us to our hotel. What he did not realize, however, is that when he gave me his number to call if we needed him, I immediately threw it away; I certainly would never deal with a person like that again.

We spent two nights in Phnom Penh, arriving on the last day of the Cambodian New Year. The city seemed nearly deserted until we found that everyone was driving up and down the riverfront road, dousing each other with water, as is the new year''s tradition. It was a madhouse! The next day was more normal, and we spent the day with a hired car and driver ($30 with our taxi driver from the airport instead of the $45-$65 the hotel quoted us to go through them) seeing the major sights of Phnom Penh.

We had 2 weeks to spend which seems quite fitting to take in most of the highlights: 3nights PNP, car to Battambang, next morning boat trip to Angkor, 3 full days Angkor, flight to PNP and car via Kampot (overnight) and Bokor to Sihanoukville. It was a good experience to see smaller towns like Battambang and Kampot, which do not feature too many interesting things but give you some impression of "normal life" besides all the bars and internationalised restaurants in the more touristy places. The roads to both towns are sealed and in good condition. Be aware that during the dry season boats from Battambang take more than 7 hours (we even had to go by pickup for the first 1,5h - extremly dusty experience).<br> <br> Take a taxi from the pier to SiemReap since the road is very bad. Angkor: If you know vaguely which temples you want to see, it is easy enough to hire a tuctuc (usually through your hotel) for the day (USD 12) and the driver will tell you which things to do first etc. Even during the hottest season I wouldn´t recommend taking a taxi since a) the difference in temperature can be quite dangerous and b) the tuktuks offers more direct contact to the environment. (Don´t be afraid: practically all roads around Angkor are sealed). Try "Khmer Kitchen" next to Old market for delicous and diversified Khmer food and don´t miss the Apsara Theatre. In Kampot the new "Long House" has a nice outward appearance (haven´t seen the rooms)- unfortunately the food is quite westernized. Bokor hill station is nice for the trip through the jungle and the spooky feeling at the remains of the hotel but don´t expect more than a fine half-day excursion.<br> <br> We spent the last days at Sokha Beach which offers all you can expect from a new resort (=lacks a bit of atmosphere) and has a magnificent private beach and a good seafood restaurant. All other beaches we saw (though principally of the same quality) were rather dirty (plastic etc). Don´t miss Claude´s crow-nest for dinner - excellent wines and wonderful seafood. In PNP, SiemReap and Sihanoukville free copies of restaurant/hotel guides are available: very useful and reliable!!

Siem Reap ia a must see destination - the size of the ruins is astounding as was the size of their Empire. Nothing compares to seeing Angkor Wat - and I have seen most there is to see at least in Asia. To understand the magnitude of the atrocity of the Pol Pot Khmer regime and to realise how far Cambodia has moved forward in a relatively short period of time is amazing. They will be fully back on their feet within 10 years for certain. The local cuisine is compartatively mediocre in comparison to Vietnamese and Thai cooking, but a brilliant French restaurant in a courtyard at the back of a library/art gallery was the culinary highlight for me. Definitely Angkor Wat is a must see - two full days of sight seeing is sufficient and if you are lucky enough to have a good driver and tour guide (ask for No. 0091) then all the better.

Great beaches, very unspoilt. Ochuteal beach is unspoilt but has a bit more activity than Sokha beach, also some reasonable resturants. Town is not great but there is a great Sri Lankan place called Bamboo Light. Trip to islands and ream park a must - use a company called Dive Cambodia they visit the hotel 3 times a week.