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 Traveller's Tales: Places to go and see in Cambodia
Take a tour of the top places to go in Cambodia. You may read about must see places and activities in the area. Also, you might want to read our
Angkor / Siem Reap city guide,
and Phnom Penh city guide.
Pages (2 of 27):
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| K Hunkeler |
28 March 2005 |
Stayed at FCC Angkor - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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We did take a trip to Angkor Wat and some of the other ancient temples and it was beautiful and very impressive. Our favorite was the Bayon and should not be missed. For all the trips and everything else it is recommended to always ask for the prices in advance to avoid surprises. We went to the Victoria Hotel for lunch and dinner a couple of times, the service and the food was very good. The restaurants in Angkor are much more reasonable than in a lot of other places in Asia. A lot of tourists go to the old market area where all of the bars and restaurants are. There is very good value for the money, good to ask for the Siem Reap Visitors guide which is free and is available at most hotels and shops. It explains the different temple areas and gives very good info about trips and restaurants.
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| G Schaafsma |
27 March 2005 |
Stayed at Mysteres d' Angkor - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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I traveled to Siem Reap/Angkor from Phnom Penh. I met a super-friendly/knowledgeable driver named Nol (cell phone 855.12.998.352) at the airport in PP. He took me around PP for the night, and made arrangements for me to be driven around by an associate of his in Siem Reap. These guys are well worth the $20 or so a day you pay them. Tuk Tuks are fun for a short ride, but if you are seeing temples all day, you need a car with airconditioning. Saw most of the temples in Angkor over 2 days, and saw the main highlights of PP, including the Killing Fields, Royal Palace, Tuol Sleng museum, etc.
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| T Rothschild |
13 March 2005 |
Stayed at Borei Angkor Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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We had an absolutely wonderful time in SR. We travel alot & this trip was no exception. The people in this wonderful country are doing such an amazing job considering the devastation they have suffered time & time again. We used Saron Soeun as our tour guide. He was fantastic! His english is great & his knowledge of the temples is amazing.You can look at Saron's web site at www.sarontours.com. We had three days in SR & had Saron as our guide for 2 days. We found that this was ample time to spend around the temples. We pretty much saw every temple in the area & even went out to Bantreay Srei which is 35km out of Siem Reap. We did these temples in great detail & didnt feel like we skimmed over them at all.
By the 3rd day we were most happy to have the day to ourselves to do a bit of shopping & go back out to Angkor Wat in the pm for one last look. Angkor Wat is best in the am. The crowds are much less & you can have many spots to yourself. Would suggest going out there in the am to do the big tour & then go there again one arvo for a look with the sun setting,but the crowds at this time are huge & the place takes on a whole different experience-not as pleasant as in the morning when it is all still a little mysterious.
If you are there on a Fri or Sat nite, please take an hour out of your time & go and see Beatocello. He is the Western Doctor who has spent his life dedicated to building Children's hospitals in PP & SR & caring for those who cannot get care. He plays the Cello and sings a little,which is quite entertaining. He plays in the Children’s hospital at 7.15pm for one hour & its free. The more important part about this is he shows 2 movies which will change the way you will think forever(not gorey)just eye opening. If you can please go, make a donation to this very necessary cause & if you are there during the opening hours of the hospital, please go and give blood. I know that this sounds like a scary thing to do in such a poor country, but I can assure you that it is totally safe. These children need us to help. Please dont just be a tourist, give something back to these people who have had so much taken away from them. I urge you. We had the best time in Cambodia & are already planning our next trip back there.
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| M Betz |
05 March 2005 |
Stayed at Ta Prohm - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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If you're not on a package tour, speak with several tuk-tuk drivers and find one who speaks passable English and knows something about Angkor Wat, then hire him for the day (arund $10, plus drinks). It may be more interesting.
If you're going in the dry season, and if you decide to see the floating market, avoid, at all costs, taking a tuk-tuk to the boats! Take car or bus. The unpaved riverbed they use for a road when the water is low results in the tuk-tuk ride from hell. Three days later my kidneys still hurt.
Take the time to see the war museum. The collection of junk weaponry is very uninspired, almost boring. But the attraction is to talk to Mr. Cat, as he says his friends call him. Because he has 9 lives. After he relates his life story and shows you all his war wounds, you'll really think he does have 9 lives. And, if, after hearing of the unspeakable tragedy visited upon him and his family by the war, land mines, etc., you don't have a king-sized lump in your throat, you're not human.
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| J Stone |
26 February 2005 |
Stayed at Angkor Saphir Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Venture beyond the temples to the open markets around Angkor Wat to avoid the tourist hoards. Get their soon-hotel development is booming and the serenity of the temples is rapidly being ruined by too many tourists. Make sure you are there for two sunrises and two sunsets--no need to stay longer. U.S. dollar happily accepted everywhere, but bring home some local currency (a 500 denomination has Angkor Wat depicted--a Cambodian national cultural treasure)!
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| S Schiff |
01 February 2005 |
Stayed at Shinta Mani - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Tuktuks are cheap and always available (for $1) to go about town. Often they are willing to wait for your return trip. For temple hopping, a private car with driver is easily arranged by the hotel and, in the heat of the day, that A/C was most welcome between stops. The 'sunset' from the hill was too hazy to merit the tourist-marathon climb so check the sky before you trek up. The boat ride to the Lake Tonle Sap floating village is dicey. Make sure that you are in a working boat which can go reasonably fast, without spewing foul exhaust, AND with life jackets. We learned this the hard way and had to beg a ride from other tourists when our assigned boat broke down. The floating village itself was of interest if in the area seeing other things but not really worth a special trip.
Local restaurants are cheap. I often over-ordered so that I could try more dishes, and then had the leftovers bagged with extra rice, to give to the many street people. They were always most grateful for the food and this is preferrable to giving money as you are sure that the mother, child, or land mine victim benefits directly. A visit to the Angkor Hospital for Children, a small 45 bed concern that emphasizes education and training along with care, was most interesting. They have a charitable arm, operated by Friends Without Borders, that uses all but 8% of the funds directly for programs and patient care.(Do NOT confuse this hospital with the large, slick, BEATCELLO concern nearby).
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| A Mccullen |
30 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Moto-trailers and motorcycles are absolutely everywhere so you will have no problems in finding transport, though contact lens wearers, be warned - the roads are very very dusty! There are plenty of great restaurants around Siem Reap ranging from Khmer to Indian to French, or if you wanted to go local, you could always eat at one of the street stalls serving Khmer noodles, rice, and baguette sandwiches. We even saw fried beetles with garlic for those with a more adventurous palette! Although I only saw them being sold by one vendor on the East bank of the river, over the bridge from the Old Market.
There are loads of souvenir shops round the old market area as well as classy little boutiques that support local Cambodians like Rajana, Senteurs and Artisans D'Angkor which also had tours around their workshops if you wanted. The Khmer Kitchen is a gem - their amok is wonderful with the coconut milk made fresh (we could hear them grinding the coconuts!) and deservedly popular. It's tucked away in a small lane behind Bar Street so look out for its sign or you'll miss it! We also tried the Soup Dragon which serves a great pho (pronounced 'fur') noodle soup dish in the mornings and the Red Piano restaurant with international food and generous portions. Most of the restaurants have upstairs balcony seating, nice for the street views. The Blue Pumpkin cafe serves great pastries, breads and ice cream. If you wanted to visit some bars, there is 'Bar Street' with the very popular Angkor What?, Temple Bar, Buddha Lounge to name a few, and Linga bar just around the corner, a very trendy affair and SR's one and only gay bar.
One thing I would definitely recommend visitors go to is the Beatocello concert held every Friday and Saturday evening at the Jayavaraman VII pediatric hospital next to the Sofitel hotel. The founder and director, Dr. Beat Richner puts on informal concerts playing the cello (hence Beatocello) combined with talking about the hospital's activities. Their services are offered completely free and it is depends very much on donations. You can see that it is put to good use with world-class facilties having been built for the Cambodian children. Even if you can't give any money, you can give blood so I would urge visitors to support this project in either way.
If you hire a local guide, around lunchtime they will 'suggest' a Khmer restaurant for you to go to. As it was our first day, we thought why not? and were taken to a nice enough restaurant. We were the first customers, but one by one, we saw tour guides bringing in their guidees(?) until the whole restaurant was filled! It wasn't that the food was bad, it was alright but it was expensive by Siem Reap standards ($18 for three dishes) and we thought Khmer Kitchen and Soup Dragon were much much better. So insist that you go to a restaurant of your choice or just ask them to drop you off at the Old Market where you can walk around and pick for yourself where you want to eat. You'll spend less and get more authentic food!
There's a balloon ride that gives you a great view over Angkor Wat and Phnom Bakheng, $11 for 10 minutes but worth it! Would have been nice for sunset but book ahead because the tour groups often go for this option. There are also helicopter tours, I can't remember how much they were but it is very very expensive! Take a break in the middle of the day from touring the temples (we usually stopped from 12-2 or 3) because it was hot, hot, hot! However, if you can stand the heat, you'll be rewarded by an infinitely more peaceful wandering-round-the-temples experience! Have fun, we certainly did!
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| M Mok |
24 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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Besides Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Bayon... should also try the far-out places like Banteay Srei & Banteay Samre. Banteay Samre...less touristy... very serene... my favourite. Be prepared to do some climbing up Phnom Bakheng but it is worth the climb for the beautiful sunset lookout.
Must try Soup Dragon Restaurant for their Green Mango Salad & Vietnamese Spring Roll. Molly Malone is also good for their French onion soup, salads & desserts but have to wait quite awhile for the serving.
Le Grande Cafe has a beautiful balcony lookout upstairs. Have tried their Vietnamese food "Amok" over here. Quite good.
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| D Brickell |
24 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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For our first day of visiting Angkor Wat and other temples we hired a driver and a guide. We paid $20 for the driver and another $20 for an English speaking guide for the day. (with an hour and a half break for lunch). Our guide took us to all the major sights of Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Angkor Thom area. One of the things we did, that was a lot of fun for us, was to take an elephant ride. Just outside the Angkor Thom south gate there is a group of elephants at a road-side facility. You can hire an elephant with a handler. The cost is $11. Our ride took us through the south gate into Angkor Thom along the jungle. Our ride lasted about a half hour. It was a great experience.
For the second day we didn't use a driver or guide, but hired a tuk tuk (mortorized rick-shaw) for the day for $10. We merely told our tuk tuk driver where we wanted to go and off we went. Our first stop was at Ta Prohm where we hired a guide for $4 for a 1 hour tour. This was very worthwhile as our guide showed us all the best locations to get good photographs as well as explaining some of the history. (The guides at this location are local young men who seem to hang out at the temple -- they do not have official guide badges, but are very knowledgeable). We also visited several lesser known places in the area that we spotted while driving through the Angkor Wat complex.
One of the best restaurants we ate at was the Chivit Thai. It is a Thai restaurant and the food was outstanding. The price was also very reasonable (Under $20 for dinner and beer). Another restaurant that had good food was the Foreign Correspondent's Club (FCC). However, it was more expensive than the Chivit Thai. In our opinion the food at Chivit Thai was better.
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| M Fisken |
14 January 2005 |
Stayed at Borei Angkor Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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We were only in Siem Reap for 3 days and wanted to make sure we got to see the temples we wanted to see in this time without having to race around like headless chooks. We took the advice of many travellers comments on this website and also friends who have travelled to Siem Reap and booked a travel guide (Phan Virak phanvirak@yahoo.com) and driver organised by the guide. We decided to book before we arrived so we did not lose valuable time to see the temples, but could also take breaks during the heat of the day and have a swim at the hotel. We also read up on the temples and made a list of what we wanted to see. Our guide was recommended to us and he was very knowledgeable and interesting having worked with the Tomb Raider film crew. Some of the temples were a great distance across rough roads but we were so pleased that we chose to visit them as you could immerse yourself into the temple without being surrounded by tourists. We were told that we had chosen the best time to travel to Cambodia (mid January) as it was cooler (but still over 30 degrees Celsius) and the humidity was low.
Some of the temples we visited were in remote areas and we got to see how everyday villagers lived. These areas are very poor and parents struggle to send their children to school. Any assistance with pens, pencils, writing pads etc will be welcomed. We were so pleased that we still had pens and pencils left to hand out to these children and they were so excited when we gave them to them (they did have kiwi themes all over them as well).
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