| |
 Cambodia travel tales
Our customers share their travelling experiences in Cambodia.
Read about first hand stories on travel tips and guides, events, entertainment,shopping, food, business and transportation.
Also, you might want to read our
Angkor / Siem Reap city guide,
and Phnom Penh city guide.
Pages (5 of 70):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 More »
| N Ng |
09 February 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
We didn't use a guide to see the temples, instead we just hired a tuk-tuk from a really nice Cambodian fellow, one Mr. Hang RA, tel (855) 12 732 211, email ra1_heng@yahoo.com. He was very friendly and suggested a list of temples we should see, all for $12 the entier day. Guides cost $20-25. Not having a guide gave us the freedom to spend as much or as little time at each temple. I also found that the Cambodian drivers haven't gotten as greedy nor pushy with tourists as those you might find in the more tourist-visited countries of Vietnam or Thailand. Try to get to Cambodia before this changes!
|
| J Morris |
04 February 2005 |
Stayed at Angkoriana - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
Hotel Restaurant very good and reasonably priced. Seeing Hands massage in town is great! 1 hour massage for $4, and can walk to large selection of restaurants from there. Piano Bar is good cheap food.
|
| S Schiff |
01 February 2005 |
Stayed at Shinta Mani - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
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).
|
| C Oliver |
31 January 2005 |
Stayed at Angkor Century Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
So much is said about the temples nothing more needs to be added - what I would strongly recommend is a visit to the floating village - truly an experience and one not to be missed. As for transport we would catch a tuk tuk at night when going out to eat as they as such good fun but during the day we hired a driver (arranged very efficiently by hotel - he was very good - spoke good english and made sure we got to see all the sites + a few other off the beaten track temples). I would thoroughly recommend both the hotel and the driver - his name was Mey-Buntheon, Bun for short and his email is buntheoun_mey@hotmail.com - he charged $25 per day and was worth it. He works independently of the hotel so you can contact him directly.
|
| A Mccullen |
30 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
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!
|
| E Walstedt |
27 January 2005 |
Stayed at Cambodiana Hotel - Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
|
The restaurant by the pool serves good food with a nice view of the river (probably too hot April-June however). As early morning walk North along Sisowath Quay as the sun comes up is highly recommended.
|
| D Brickell |
24 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
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.
|
| M Mok |
24 January 2005 |
Stayed at Passaggio Boutique Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
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.
|
| K Parker |
24 January 2005 |
Stayed at Mysteres d' Angkor - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
For anyone travelling overland between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and thinking about taking the boat, all I can say is DON'T DO IT!! We caught a bus up to Siem Reap and the boat back to Phnom Penh. The boat was an uncomfortable and unsafe 7 hour trip. It was packed full of tourists and I think nearly everyone had a look of disappointment on their face when they realised what they were in for. Inside the boat there were narrow seats with very little leg room. If you were sitting next to any wall you had to crick your neck for the whole journey. There were no windows at all and only two entry points both at the same end of the boat. If this boat had sunk anyone sitting inside wouldn't have a chance!
Additionally there was only one toilet for about 70 people for a 7 hour journey. When I enquired about it midway through the journey I was told not to go unless I was absolutely desperate. I held on!
We decided we’d rather sit on the roof, as did as many other people who could fit on the roof. It turned out to be a long, hot, uncomfortable journey which ended with a painful bout of sunburn. And all this was provided for the hefty price of US$25 each.
By contrast the bus was comfortable and there were regular stops for food and the toilet. Admittedly our bus did have to stop because of a problem with the radiator but this was quickly fixed. In the end the journey took the same amount of time as the boat but it only cost US$7.
|
| C Ryan |
23 January 2005 |
Stayed at Borei Angkor Hotel - Siem Reap, Cambodia.
|
Compared with Phnom Penh Siem Reap is very laid back + friendly. Getting around is easy you can use your legs although it does get a bit hot walking everywhere! We used a tuktuk + our driver was Mr. Saleap - he is found outside Borei Angkor hotel, took us to the temples + basically everywhere else we wanted to go - look him up he is ultra reliable.
We liked Angkor What?, a bar where everyone crowds in good atmosphere everyone chatting away, dancing + having a good laugh - we also went to Laundry, a late drinking joint which unlike Martini had no women of the night!!
Restaurants we liked were Khmer kitchen + soup dragon.
|
|
Pages (5 of 70):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 More »
Book a hotel in Cambodia
|
