First impression of Cambodia
The Angkor temples are the jewels of Asia and the biggest attraction in Cambodia. You can get a 1 day ($20), 3 day ($40) and 1 week ($60) pass. Most people including myself take the 3 day pass that if you wish can be used on non-consecutive days.
After deciding how many days you want to stick around, you’ll want to think about transportation.
Option 1 – by motorbike: actually my preferred option but off-limits due to motorbike rental restrictions in Siem Riep to tourists.
Option 2 – by bicycle: cycling independently along all the temples has one huge disadvantage. The distance from Siem Riep to the closest temple is 7 km, doing a loop is more than 30 km. Oh and by the way, it’s 40°C with an unforgiving sun above your head.
Option 3 – by tuk-tuk: Although I always prefer exploring places independently, option 1 and 2 just weren’t an option for me. So I got in touch with Sokun who drove me around the area for 3 days.
Day 1
The first day Sokun picked me up at 5 AM for sunrise at Angkor Wat. It’s dark outside and a whole army of tourists with their camera gear are waiting in front of the pool to watch the sun come up. After snapping 3 pre-sunrise photos it started to get light and decided to get in. It’s a great sensation to walk around this infamous temple almost completely on your own, while everyone’s outside waiting for the sun on a cloudy morning.
I used the rest of the morning to see all the big and famous temples, each time arriving just before the crowds. Until around 11 AM when I’m surrounded by Chinese tourists, killing the whole Indiana Jones mood I had in the earlier hours. But after walking around temples for over 6 hours, it’s time to call it a day anyways.
Day 2
Since I already seen all the big attractions the first day, I went about 50 km up North for a 3 km jungle-trek to one of Angkor’s slightly less visited temples. The destination itself wasn’t special, but walking through the jungle was a welcoming change of pace. After that we went back to the main area to visit some of the lesser known temples that I actually found way more impressive.
Day 3
I had to do some serious haggling with Sokun for this one, but we drove for almost 2 hours to the remote temple Beng Mealea, which unfortunately wasn’t as remote as I had hoped because we arrived together with busloads of Chinese tourists. Nonetheless this was the most imposing temples of all. At one point I was able to dodge everyone, climbed on top of the huge boulders and was surrounded by dozens of butterflies.
—
On a side note: Walking through the Angkor temples I was constantly thinking how cool this location would be for cosplay photo shoots.
Related posts
