Siem Reap Day 1

Last year during an Air Asia promotion, I cannot remember how me and a friend ended up buying flight tickets to Siem Reap. The ticket price was cheap at RM200++ for return. I remember that we wanted to call along few more friends but their reaction was "What? Siem Reap? Yerr, I duwan >.<". I wonder why. =.=" I have been wanting to visit it during my college days. :D

Oh, Hello Cambodia! I have been longing to see you~

There we go, one year past soooo fast and the time has arrived. Since I have been flying back to KK for the past month and did not get enough of rests, I felt a little bit reluctant and tired. Lol~ I am old. Anyway, our flight was at 6:50am (Cheap flight ma. We are I am cheapskate. T3T)

Siem Reap International Airport, which looks like a hotel view.

We booked our hotel room via Groupon voucher. We stayed in Prince D'Angkor which were located at the Sivatha Road. The voucher only costed like RM500 for 3 nights, including free massage and free airport transfer. Worth it. :D

Neat hotel room and the model.

Upon arrival, we were invited to be seated at the hotel lobby as the staff there got our passports and checked in the room for us. Nice service. We got our room at 9am, nice! XD

Beds. Very tempting.

The hotel has good view but their elevator is not available for the first floor. For those who get the rooms on the first floor, you guys need to take the staircase. Kesian. o.O

Swimming pool at Prince D'Angkor. :D

Anyway, we met a new friend during our trip as he stayed at the same hotel too. Since we did not plan for any tour to the Angkor Archaeological Park, we muka tembok and tagged along him as he has booked a tour guide to the place. XD

The view on the Tuk-Tuk on our way to Angkor Archaeological Park.

We got onto a Tuk-Tuk and started our journey. We stopped at the ticketing counter on the way to get our three-day pass (One day is not enough to cover all the places it seems). The three-day pass costed at USD40 whereas the one-day pass is at USD20. The three-day pass has to be used in 3 consecutive days. There is a seven-day pass too, which I do not know the price but it can be used in any 7 days in a month.

Angkor Pass with our fat faces~ :D

The tour guide's plan for the day was to visit Angkor Thom. (I was very eager wanted to see Angkor Wat but he said we should visit that on the next day. T.T). That tour guide's English language isn't very good but we could still understand la. He told us about the history like a programmed speaker (We did not listen to him most of the time). Lol~ I hope someone could do that to me last time so that I needed not to read the History subject's textbook. XD

The entrance of Angkor Thom.

Angkor Thom was built by the king Jayavarman VII, which took over the city after the death of the previous king as their capital city. The highlight of Angkor Thom is the Bayon Temple, which was the state temple built to replace Angkor Wat. (Credit to Wikipedia XD).

I am watching you~

The Bayon temple was built with a lot of stone faces all around. The face resembles a smiling Buddha. It's like an optical illusion everywhere. Lol. On some of the walls at the Bayon temple, crafted some stories on how the enemies had brought down the Khmer. The Bayon is a lot huger than the Angkor Wat.

Three smiling Buddha faces. Optical illusion.

Then we moved to the Baphuon, which was built to worship the Hindu God. We did not climb up to the temple as my friend was wearing a pair of shorts and she was not allowed to go in. So we walked to the back of the temple and the tour guide showed us an unfinished reclining Buddha statue, which was very abstract. I would not have noticed if he did not mention it.

Can you see the reclining Buddha?

We then proceeded to the Phimeanakas and Terrace of the Elephants before heading to our lunch nearby. It was at around 1++pm and I was tad hungry. >.<" The price of the food was obviously to cut the tourists. I had a can of soft drink for USD2 and a plate of Fried Rice with Pork for USD5. The lunch place is just some stalls set up on the muddy grass field. Btw, I think they like their food sweet. The fried rice has no other taste than sweetness. Lol~ But did not taste that bad la, our first Khmer meal. :D

Big plate of rice.. Nom! XD

After lunch, we headed to the Tonle Sap Lake. We traveled for one hour from the Angkor place to there. Please remember to bring along your sunglasses and those surgical mask if you visit Siem Reap it is so dusty there. You will not be able to open your eyes without your glasses. We did not wear a mask while on our way to Tonle Sap. At the end, we felt our mouth was very dry and full with sands when we reached =.=".

At the jetty~ Boats waiting for water fishes. XD

The boat ride in the Tonle Sap Lake costed USD20 per person, which I think is not worth at all. The boat will bring your to tour around their floating village and send you to the school/community center, so that you can donate some money to the children there. We did not want to stop by but the tour guide insisted we stop there. =.=" They did not force us to buy/donate because we looked poor. They aimed those big boats with a lot of Japanese tourists~ Lol~ Our saviors.. XD Then they took us to the floating market to see the crocodiles and to get a photo of the whole floating market view at a platform.

The view of the Tonle Sap Village~

We headed back to the hotel for a rest and had our dinner at Koulen II Restaurant, which I think most of the tourists were cheated to go. Lol~ Not cheat la. It located just few hundred meters away from our hotel. It served international buffet in a hugeeeee hall. I think it can accommodate hundreds of tables. There were these traditional dance shows started at around 8pm, which ended with an Apsara Dance Show. Their dances are all slow and steady and draggy. Lol~ I nearly fell asleep watching them dance.

The stoned face Apsara dance. Stolen from my friend's Facebook as my camera was lousy to take photos at low light.

That's all for the day. We slept very early during the trip, we are old. I think we fell asleep while watching the television. Lol~