Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our second flight from Luang Prabang was delayed a couple hours and by the time the turbo prop landed in Siem Reap we had been traveling since 6:30 am and it was now 3:30 pm. 

Our hotel, Viroth’s, sent a driver in a beautifully maintained 1968 Mercedes limo to pick us up. 

As other travelers rode off in motorcycle rickshaws we were whisked away in the back of the limo with cold scented towels and cool water. 

We have stayed in some very lovely hotels on this trip but Viroth’s is another step up altogether. Contemporary Asian chic.

It’s so beautiful and tastefully done. The staff are young, pretty and so well trained they anticipate your every need. Everything is perfection. It’s not large but it’s very elegant.  

Our neighborhood of Wat Bo is the new hip area to be with attractive restaurants and cafes. 

Across the narrow river slicing through the middle of town is the more happening party streets of the “Pub Street” area.  Loud!  Congested! Hundreds of motorcycles and rickshaws! Bars blasting music. We loved returning to our hotel. 

Our first afternoon we we thought maybe it was a bit too chic and sophisticated for us. Everyone around the pool spoke in soft voices, proper British accents, demure French.  But immediately we met such nice people we realized it was all in our heads.  The staff never stop attending to you. Upon leaving they would spray your ankles and arms with delightfully scented natural mosquito spray. Returning, a cold scented towel was immediately placed in your hands with a cool drink of lemongrass juice.  It’s HOT here!  Around 93-94 degrees.  

The town has been cleaned up since we were last here six years ago. During the Covid lockdown the government fixed the city sewers, paved the streets, made better sidewalks and have more recycling programs. The trees along the river are lovely, the little arched bridges every few streets have lights and colorful lanterns.  What an improvement!  We spent the first three days doing nothing but laying around the beautiful salt water pool.  

Breakfast was made to order unlike the buffets at the other hotels we have stayed.  

We learned to say “moi moi” which means “step by step” after we asked our waitstaff to first bring our cappuccino and then our fruit, before the eggs and toast.  

They got it and we never had to request that again.  

Nice to have a week here so we could relax and not feel rushed to venture out to the Angkor Temple Complex. The temples, mostly Buddhist and a few Hindu temples, were built between the 9th into the 13th century.  

The jungle over took them after people left the area and were rediscovered in the 1930’s by a French surveyor.  They are amazing!  

You crawl around through their tunnels and over the huge stones they were built with. They are in a state of collapse and are constantly being rebuilt but slowly as there are hundreds upon hundreds of stones, at each temple site!  

It’s feels so amazing to be walking where elephants walked  and royalty lived and bathed.  We hired a car, air conditioned thankfully.  

Went spent seven hours going from temple to temple. Driving out into the countryside, villages of locals were making palm sugar, weaving baskets, growing rice.  It was exhausting and exhilarating to crawl all over the ruins. Each time we’d return from our walks the driver would hand us a cold towel and a small bottle of cold water. It felt divine!  

We waited a couple days before we did a shorter trip out, only four hours, riding this time in a motorcycle rickshaw.  

No cold towels! But lots of water.  It was so hot my clothing was completely soaked through.  Sunset at Angkor Wat, the largest temple. 

But my favorite temple was the smaller Banteay Kdai meaning Citadel of Monks Chambers.  There, hundreds of beautiful reliefs were still intact. 

And Ta Kep, a miniature of Ta Prohm, (from the movie Tomb Raider).  It was built entirely of sandstone by the Khmers. Beautiful!  Amazing structures in their decay. 

What they must have been like when they were alive with royalty, elephants, hundreds of people living and praying amongst them.