Our stay in Cambodia was quite brief compared to other places we went. As beautiful as it was (if you didn’t look too closely) there were some bad vibes within our group while we were in Cambodia. Part of this was because we were drinking too much and it was screwing with our mental health, and part of it was because there was a saddening amount of litter, with people deliberately chucking litter into the mangroves etc, which definitely left a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. Along with not having air-conditioning in most of the places we stayed, which meant there was no escape from the unbareable heat, and definitely led to increased irritability. We also found Cambodia quite expensive. They use the USD, along with the Cambodian Riel. Where 4000 Riel ≈ 1 USD. Which was a bit confusing as you would receive mixed currency change and most of the time you just had to trust they were not trying to scam you. But the fact they used USD meant that most things cost at least 1 USD, which was not the case in Vietnam or the Philippines, or even Malaysia where we went afterwards. So there were bad vibes, we were all grumpy and too hot most of the time, along with it costing more than we expected – hence why we didn’t stay as long as we had in other places.
Our first stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap. If you read my Vietnam part 2 blog, you will know that our trip from Vietnam into Cambodia was a little stressful, to say the least. Briefly, that was due to 2 x 6 hours, delayed bus journeys on buses not made for Westerners, with a pretty significant language barrier that Google translate couldn’t help with! Feel free to check out that post to find out more information on why it was particularly stressful. But once we had eventually got to our hotel (Okay Guesthouse) at 4am on the 13th January, we were happy that we had decided to keep going and not try and get a hotel in Phnom Penh, when we didn’t know where we were, with no means of checking either. Okay Guesthouse was actually really nice and very affordable. It was large and very fancy looking, with lots of beautiful ornamentation going up the front of the building as well as throughout the lobby. There was a lovely rooftop area with a swimming pool and sun loungers on one side and a bar and restaurant with a pool table on the other, although it was all quite open plan. We stayed here for 4 nights until the 17th January as I initally thought we might want a 3 day pass for the Angkor Wat temples when I made the bookings. In the end, after talking to some friends who had done it – we decided one day pass would probably be enough.
As we had quite a journey to get to Siem Reap, we decided to fly down to Sihanoukville International Airport and get a taxi across to Kampot where we were going to meet a friend, but the taxi cost 20 USD each. That meant 60 USD for 3 of us! Pretty expensive, but that just seemed to be how much it was to get a taxi there. We stayed in High Tide hostel which was right on the river for 7 nights (18th-23rd January). This hostel was very nice to stay at. There was a beach like feel as there was a big sandy patch with trees, and the river water was very salty and tidal as it was so close to the sea. The staff were very friendly and fun here.
After this we got a bus ticket from the hostel to the ferry port, which included the ferry crossing to Koh Rong island. The bus journey was a bit odd. We were taken to a travel agents and had to swap out our bus tickets for the ferry tickets. We were told to just sit and wait for another bus to the ferry port. They could speak English here, although they did not really tell us much. Some buses were coming and going and we didn’t know which bus we needed and had very little guidance about how long we would be waiting. After we were sat next to piles of stinking rubbish in the crazy heat for about an hour, a bus came to pick us up. It took a weird route and then dropped us at the top of the road for the ferry so we had to walk the end of the way. The distance was really not that far, and we could have walked the whole way easily enough and not waited in an amongst the smelly rubbish. But never mind, it did save us walking too much further in the heat. We managed to get some cash out before we got to the ferry as we had heard it was much harder to do so on the island, at least without incurring crazy fees. If I remember correctly, the ferry journey took about 3 hours, although when I looked online to check the times, they are advertised as 45mins. That being said, I did see one post that said the time to Koh Rong Samloem is marked as 45mins but usually takes about an hour and a half, depending on what stop you get on or off at, along with other factors. I believe our ferry stopped at Koh Rong Samloem before stopping at Koh Rong, so perhaps it was about 3 hours in total but I would not like to bet on this. Once we got off the ferry at Koh Rong, I think we could have got straight onto another to take us around the island, although we faffed about for just too long trying to get WiFi so we could figure where our hostel was and how to get there. So by the time we were ready for it, that boat had gone and others were no longer going due to the tide levels. Note to self – make a note of the accommodation address somewhere that does not require WiFi access! This meant that the only option for us to get there was a motorbike for each of us. I thought our big bags would be strapped down, but no, the drivers just put these between their legs. I didn’t think the bike handles would be able to turn, but they seemed to manage it – I guess the drivers are used to this sort of thing. Alex and Sam really didn’t like being on the backs of bikes, although I am always on the back so it didn’t really bother me so much and I actually managed to enjoy the view of the sunset when we got to the West side of the island. Saying that, the guy who took Alex went like a bat out of hell. And there was not really a road as such, parts of it were just on the super soft sandy beach where I was a little worried about the grip of the tyres, but we all managed to stay upright so that was good. The motorbike drivers took us to some place, started unloading us and talking to the owners. Then indicating to us to get back on as this was clearly not the right place. So they turned around and took us to the next place. We got off the bikes again and were taken up to 2 rooms by the owners. One of the rooms had a double bed and a matress on the floor. It was definitely not glamorous accomodation. It didn’t take us too much longer to realise that we were in the wrong place again though. The drivers had just left us at the wrong place. Luckily, Sok San New Beach hostel (where we had booked to stay) was not too much further down this strip so we walked the remaining way. When we got there the owners did not seem very friendly at all and we found out later that the food there was not that good either.
We stayed here from 24th-26th January, right over the Tet holiday (Chinese New Year celebration). This is why we generally struggled to find accommodation, and what we did find cost more than we had expected. It was still not terribly priced, although it was about double what we had been spending for anywhere else, even in Cambodia which was more expensive anyway.
The bar area of Sok San New Beach was right on the beach, with the rooms heading back away from the sea. Our rooms were on a wooden platform over the mangrove area. Alex actually fell through one of the wooden planks on one of the mornings as it had rotten. He would have fallen right into the mangroves had it not have been for the electricity cable right underneath his foot. Luckily he was OK and they fixed this patch of boards pretty quickly, but it did make us a little nervous when we walked on the boards after this.
Sam left us the morning of the 27th and went to Bangkok, via Phnom Pehn so he could finish his travelling time and get a flight back to sunny old Somerset. We got a boat back around to the other side of the island as we were keen to meet up with some friends who were staying on the island that we had met in Vietnam. They were the reason we went to this island in the first place, but we hadn’t realised how hard it would be to get around the island, so we were keen to see them before we set off for Malaysia. We landed at the main port of Koh Lanta although this was still far away from where Mats and Helene were staying. We had no where to stay for the evening and Alex had a big gaping hole in his foot still (I mention more about how he got that later on in this post). So I left him in the shade of a tree and went up and down the beach front trying to find a room for the night that wasn’t $50-70! We eventually found a place that was just within budget, although still more than we had wanted to spend (I think it was $15 per night, so really not that dreadful either). I went back to get Alex and brought him back to the shop front where I had agreed the price with the woman at the counter. Her English was not amazing so I was initially a bit confused about where the hostel was, I understood that the one directly above the shop was full but she had another place. Fortunately she showed us around some corners and to Papa guesthouse. The room was quite modest but comfortable enough, apart from the rats that were crawling along the bookshelves, and kept me up one night. The bathroom was just outside our door. We ended up staying here another night (27-28th January) as we had not booked onward travel at this point so needed to sort that out.
We managed to book a flight from Sihanoukville International Airport for the 30th January and stayed one night (29th January) in Sihanoukville so we could get to the airport more easily at a place called Moms kitchen in the village. I would absolutely recommend all other travellers to totally avoid Sihanoukville. It is still a huge construction site, the roads are more pot holes than roads. Although, it is possible that it might be nice in a few years, there seems to be big Chinese investment as there were lots of casinos.
Siem Reap
There is some horrible history in Cambodia. Siem Reap litterally means “Siamese Defeated” and is so named because of the conflict between the Siamese and Khmer. However, it was a very cool area. The likelihood is that you have heard of, or seen pictures of the Angkor Wat Temple complex pop up on your social media feeds. There are LOADS of really old temples all over this area, the most famous is the Angkor Wat Temple as it is the biggest and most well preserved. It is considered to be one of the largest religious monuments in the world.
As we got to our acommodation in the wee hours, we did not really do very much on the first day. We had food in the rooftop bar area and wondered around the town a bit, explored the markets and drank a lot of gin and tonics. We kept having ‘one more drink’ despite not really wanting too. We had wanted to get an early night and set off early the next day to visit the temples, but somehow or another, lots more rounds were ordered. I was definitely at the stage of just drinking it because the others were, and I believe Sam might have been doing the same. As we were going to go home, we were catfished into another bar with the promise of a free drink. I mean, they were not lying, it was a free drink. But we should have gone home. It was a very fruity shot, with probably no alcohol in it. But we stayed for several more G and Ts.
We had been told that the 1 day pass was enough for temples, due to temple fatigue, especially in the heat. Our plan had been to rent bikes from the hostel and cycle around the temples. We had not realised how far apart the temples were. Fortunately for all of us, I had really bad period pains that day which meant we decided to get a tuk tuk instead. Thank goodness! We would possibly all have died of heat exhaustion and dehydration if we had cycled. We already ran out of water, including the free water that we had not accounted for that was provided in the tuk tuk and we were not cycling, but getting transported from one to the next in the shade. We all cheered for my bad period later that day! First time ever…
Our tuk tuk driver was affiliated with the hostel and had told the hostel staff the route we had planned on taking, then we changed our minds as we had not realised that this route did not do the main Angkor Wat Temple. After this he asked us not to tell the the hostel that we had gone with him. I found this a bit odd but was happy to comply. I think it was a safeguarding measure that they had to say the planned route, but then because we changed our minds he was in violation of this or something.
Initially our driver took us to the official ticket centre, which is a bit outside the town centre, where we could purchase the pass for the temples. Apparently this is the only way to buy valid tickets, so be careful if you intend to buy tickets through other means, such as through hotels and tour companies as they will probably not be valid. The ticket centre is supposedly open 4.30am-5.30pm daily, meaning you should be able to purchase your ticket on the day, even if you want to make it to the temples for sunrise, which pretty consistently occurs between about 5.30am – 6.30am all year around. If a ticket is purchased after 5pm it is valid for the next day, although you should be able to use it that evening for sunset as well. We were told about this but were not organised enought to make use of it. Most temples are open between 7.30am-5.30pm, although some are open longer (from 5am and/or until 7pm) to allow for sunrise and sunset visits.
Tickets were not cheap, but if you are there, you just have to factor that into your budget. It would be awful to be right there and then decide you will not check out these awesome temples because of the money. The 1 day pass costs $37. A 3 day pass would have been $62 (valid for 10 days from date of issue), and a 7 day pass would be $72 (valid for 1 month from date of issue). The extended validity of the multi-day passes means that the temples can be visited on days that are not consecutive. Passes are not transferrable and have your name and picture on them. Accepted currencies for purchase of temple passes include US Dollars, Cambodian Riel, Thai Bath, and Euro, or tickets can be purchased via credit cards. You can visit as many temples as you like in the time that the pass is valid. A lot of the tuk tuk routes cover 5 temples.
As we had drank a lot the night before, we didn’t set off too early. I believe we arrived at Angkor Wat somewhere between 11 and 12, just timed right for the midday heat… perfect! 😕 our tuk tuk driver told us that we had to go right through and he would pick us up on the other side. We spent about an hour and a half (I think) in this temple. It was so big! And so intricately decorated. It was truly fantastic. We saw some hot air balloons doing a fly by. It certainly would have been a cool way to see the temples, although I also think it is perhaps necessary to see it at ground level as well.
Our next temple stop was Banteay Kdei. This temple was a lot more in ruin than Angkor Wat. It was quite interesting to see the difference. We saw a big lizzard here, and a hive of what seemed to be bees. It was fun going over, and under, and through the crumbling stones. This one did not take anywhere near as long to walk round as the Angkor Wat Temple, which was good as I wasn’t sure we were gonna make all of them with the time we had and how late we started.
We then stopped for some lunch at a restaurant that our tuk tuk driver recommended for us. It was good to sit in the air-conditioning for a few minutes and drink some cold coconut, although it was a different type of coconut to the ones we normally had and I didn’t like the taste quite so much.
After lunch, we went to Ta Prohm Temple, which I think may have been my favourite. I loved the big tree roots growing through the temple. This had been the one I had seen so many times on Instagram which had made me so keen to go and see the temples for myself. Again, this was a shorter visit than the Angkor Wat Temple and also a lot of crumbling rocks like Banteay Kdei but was a bit bigger. It was hard to get a shot without tourists at this temple. It was a bit busier than Banteay Kdei, but I think it is more famous too.
After this, we went to Ta Keo Temple. This was in less ruin than the previous two temples and was more pyramidal shaped. There were huge, steep, uneven and tricky steps to conquer. We discussed that maybe it was deliberately difficult to ascend, as it was the place of the gods and therefore should be a challenge for mere mortals to get to. We found it fascinating that there are many impressive, beautiful temples in SE Asia at the top of hills, but the steps are often very wonky and tricky to climb. They can successfully build the massive temples, but struggle to do straight steps… That is what made us think that perhaps it is intentional.
The final temple we went to was Bayon Temple. Here there were so many of the large face statues which I loved from the previous temples. Again the tuk tuk driver dropped us at one side and picked us up at the other. We were quite quick going through this temple as we were hot, sticky and sore by this time. It was another temple that was slightly in ruins but not as bad as some we had seen that day.
Our tuk tuk driver had offered to take us to a temple up on the hill to watch the sunset for a bit more of a fee but we had decided that we wanted to go back and get in the rooftop pool by this point and cool off.
I think the whole day in the tuk tuk cost $15 or $18 for different loops but we gave at least $20 as we had enjoyed our outing and a couple of extra dollars was no skin off our noses.
That evening we cooled off at the pool, played some pool without a black ball and watched the sunset from the rooftop before heading into the city centre for Mexican food and going to a bar with an open mic session. The music was very varied but towards the end in particular it was very fun and funky and you could not help but dancing. It was a really great, but also a totally exhausting day!
Our last day in Siem Reap we didn’t go far from the hotel, we found a wine shop where we tried and bought some wine, then drank it while we watched tropic thunder in the hostel in the evening.
Kampot
We were in Kampot for a week as we wanted to see our friend, Sarah, who is also from Somerset. A lot of this time we spent drinking and just chilling at the hostel. While we were here though, we did go for a grueling hike in the Cambodian midday heat, up a mountain, through the jungle, to a dried up waterfall, with about 20 folk from the hostel. Despite nearly passing out from heat stroke, it was a fun day. Although, when we had agreed to it, we were expecting it to be a big waterfall that we could basically drive on a bike to and walk 10mins. This then got twisted to a different waterfall as one of the people going had been to that one recently and wanted to check out this other one. I can’t believe how many people from the hostel went on this expedition. We were due to set out at about 10am if I remember correctly, but it got pushed back and back as we were waiting for bikes and people etc, and with so many people it always takes longer than expected. The guys who knew the way and worked at the hostel had said it was a proper hike and to make sure we had enough water and snacks etc. They had also said it was about an hour of walking, so we thought a couple of apples would be sufficient for snacks as we had eaten breakfast, fortunately! It definitely took a lot longer than an hour, but I do believe that those guys could have done it in an hour without everyone else there. Luckily, I decided before we left that 2 X 1.5L bottles of water was not enough so we doubled up and had a total of 6L with us. Which was heavy to carry initially but wow, am I glad we took them! At one point I wasn’t sure I could keep going, my head was absolutely fried in the heat. I get super hot doing a small amount of exercise in UK, let alone climbing in the jungle in the tropics. Alex is great in this sorts of situations though. He poured some of our water onto my head to cool me off and sat with me for awhile in some shade, as the rest of the group were getting further and further from us. I did eventually get to a stage that I could continue. We finally got to a trickle of water with a small pool where we all got in for a few minutes to cool off. The leaders of the group said we should stay here for only a short time and then keep going to the next level where there should be another patch of water. I didn’t like this idea, especially after it had taken what I thought was most of my endurance to get this far and it meant leaving the small patch of cooling water that we had found. Not only this, but the route they took was vertically upwards in the jungle, and you had to clamber and grab onto tree roots and pull and haul yourself upwards. I felt so drained at this point. We got to a bit of a clearing with massive boulders, which clearly would have had water in the rainy season, but it was so dried up at this point. Part of this was due to the massive irrigation system in place that was piping any remaining water to the surrounding banana crops, and they were everywhere. The group split at this point, the leaders continued to go upwards in search of more water, and a lot of people sat on the boulders and waited for news of the mystery waterfall. After some time went by, some of the group that had been left behind had started making noises about heading back to the patch of water we had come from, which I was certainly very keen to do as it was so ridiculously hot! So again the team split, some waited to tell the others that we had gone back while the rest of us clambered back over the boulders and down the vertical jungle drop to the small patch of water we had left. We had another dip but then some of the group were saying they wanted to continue back as we didn’t have that much sunlight left. I am glad we did leave when we did as the sun was basically setting by the time we got back to the bikes. The group got a little more dispersed as we went back down the hill. I managed to enjoy the walk back down a lot more than the intensive hike upwards. I had cooled off enough that my brain felt functional again and I actually took some photos of the amazing scenery on the way down. I couldn’t even bear to think of this on the way up! We stopped at the point we had parked the bikes and some people had beer or much needed salty snacks. Several of the remaining group went for food in the city, to a dumpling restaurant that had been highly recommended. It was really good, and salty food, which was exactly what was needed at the time.
That same evening, there was a party being held in a hostel just down the road from the one we were staying at. I wasn’t sure how sensible it was to go after being so severely dehydrated during the day. But I went back to the room for a few hours, cooled off, had some rehydration salts and a general rest before heading out to the party. It was quite a cool set up, although the music was awful, at one point I had tried to go and dance but it was not danceable. I was a bit too tired from the day’s expedition to really enjoy it, but it was OK. I nearly bought some beautiful jewellery from a stall there but just never went back as I couldn’t really justify buying it, even though it seemed pretty cheap for what it was.
Another adventure that occured from Kampot was to the cave temple as one of the guys from the hostel, Kris, was keen to check it out and we decided to go with him. We got a tuk tuk from the hostel but the driver didn’t really understand English so went to drop us in town. I believe another tuk tuk driver translated for us to say this is not where we wanted to go. After a long and incredibly bumpy ride on a pot hole ridden track, we got to the climbing centre – which was also not where we wanted to go. We got up on maps where we had wanted to go, and after he stopped a few more times to get directions from locals, we eventually got to the cave temple. We were all delighted to get there. Some of our group were feeling a little fragile from too much drinking the night before, I was not feeling too rough, although the tuk tuk ride itself was enough to make most people feel a little queezy.
A guy greeted us and asked to be our tour guide, I think it was $1 or $2 each for the guide so we decided to take it. Our guide had very good English and was pretty funny. He asked our tuk tuk driver to wait for us as there was no other transport out this way. As we started the tour, he showed us the exits of the cave and said there is an easy exit and a funny one. We all said we would want the easy one, to which he just laughed and continued with the tour. We climbed some big steps with dragons as handrails if I remember correctly. The steps were quite steep and we were quite tired from the climb. We saw the very old temple just inside the cave and sort of thought that was the extent of it. But the guide then took us further into the cave and we all went into a section where we had to scoot on our bums down a vertical rock face for about 6ft or so. Therefore at this point we were well and truly inside the cave and it would be very difficult to go out the way we had come. The guide took us deeper and deeper into the cave system and then turned off his light and said “see you tomorrow, hehehe” and scampered behind the next rock feature. I did have a head torch on which I just happened to have about my person but the power was pretty bad so we were pretty much in complete darkness. It was scary but he was only joking about with us and flicked his light on after a couple of seconds. He did things like this a few more times while we were in the cave. The guide pointed out an exit but said we are going this way, to a different one… You guess it, to the “funny exit”. The guide explained how you had to get down low and push off the back wall and squidge yourself through the hole. Sam was first to try it and managed it no problem. Alex was next and couldn’t make it. He was too tall or had too big a chest or something that prevented him from being able to use this exit. He had to come back in and use another exit which was just above the one we used. I hadn’t realised that the other exit was so close but I was feeling hot and quite claustrophobic at this point so used the funny exit. Sam tried to just pull me out but that wasn’t gonna work, I had to get him to stop, readjust my footing and managed to clamber out. The guide, Alex and Chris then shortly came out from above us. We were all quite relieved to be out of the cave, we had not expected to go caving and were not really in appropriate attire. I was wearing a floaty summer dress and sandles and my dress kept catching on rocks and actually tore on one. Alex was also in sandles and had a small graze on his foot, directly under the sandle strap which he got from climbing out of the river on a ladder barnacle at the hostel. You normally expect caves to be cold, but this one was still hot and humid. That, mixed with grit and bat poop and the sandle strap meant Alex’s small graze turned into a huge, sopping hole. It didn’t heal for the entire time we were away due to the humidity. It did get better when we left Cambodia and got air-conditioned rooms but not fully, and I think he might always have a scar.
After the cave experience we got a beer, or 2 each at the entrance and then headed back into town. The tuk tuk cost us I think about $26 for the entire time, which worked out a bit more than we had expected when we agreed the original price but considering there was misunderstanding about where we wanted to go, it was not too bad. We went for a tasty Mexican as we were all ravenous. We were generally pretty impressed by the Mexican food we had in Cambodia.
Another evening I went into town with Kris for a look around. We checked out the famous Kampot pepper in one of the shops, and tried all the tasters. It was very tasty pepper, although I thought it was quite expensive and was hoping to buy some from the farm another time, but we never actually got there. Although Kris did buy some for a friend of his who was a chef. After this we walked around to the durian roundabout and back through the food market. I said I had never tried shawarma so we shared a wrap from one of the stalls and had some of their fresh lemoade with mint it was very tasty. As we were sat at the table, Kris saw some friends he had met at a previous place. They invited us to go for dinner with them in the Portuguese restaurant down the road. We were still a bit peckish so went to join them. We had a luxurious meal in a vague tapas style, and shared a bottle of wine. They ordered several dishes and we all shared them. It was more expensive that I normally would spend on food, especially without Alex, although it was a very nice way to spend an evening. It was quite fun as we were all from different places, Kris was living in Switzerland, the girl was half Dutch, half Portuguese I believe and the guy was Italian and had very little English. We were trying to communicate in other languages, mostly Spanish, but a little of French. I found this challenging as my listening skills for languages are not that good, but I did also find it quite enjoyable as it is something I want to get better at. They were staying in a hostel on the same road as us so we shared a tuk tuk back.
One of the days we were in Kampot we went to Arcadia hostel which had some water park features. We spent the afternoon here jumping into the river.
Another day we went on an evening boat trip down the river which had some fire spinners and a band. It was pretty fun.
The day after this we went across to Koh Rong right over the Tet holiday (Chinese New Year). We arrived at our hostel slightly after sunset and went to the bar for some beer and some food. We were quite disappointed by the food here, we tried it another time out of laziness, but after that we decided to go elsewhere. There were a few options around so it wasn’t too bad.
The night’s sky was fantastic here, 2 of the 3 nights we were here I went to the end of a pier and stared up at the sky. One of those times I needed some space from the guys who just had a lot of bad energy that night. The other time we all went together, we were on our way for some food, but the whole area had a power cut so no food was available. We thought we would sit on the pier for awhile and see if it came back on, but it didn’t – it was out for the next morning as well which was when we had to leave. Sam left on the early ferry as he had onward travel towards Bangkok for his flight home, whereas we still had friends on the island we wanted to see so decided to get the ferry just around the island and try to get more accomodation on the island. We were still not in the same area on the island as Mats and Helene, although getting to the same area was proving very difficult. We eventually managed to find some accomodation which was OK, it was more than our intended budget, but it was doable, whereas a lot of places along that strip were upwards of $50 per night! We had a brief lie down and then I went to meet Mats and Helene on 4K beach, which was about a 20min walk away. I left a grumpy Alex still in bed and made my way to see our friends at a pretty side of the island. We had a couple of drinks here at the sandbank whilst sitting in the hammocks. Helene and Mats joined me back to the main strip at Koh Lanta. And we managed to rustle Alex up enough to join us for dinner. We had some fantastic food from a beach vendor, I believe it was noodles, it was very cheap and very good. We had a lovely evening before Helene and Mats walked back across the island in the dark which I think would have taken them about 4 hours through the jungle to get to their campsite. I do regret that we did not go out in the sea whilst on this island at night as there were apparently bioluminescent plankton everywhere and I would have loved to have seen it, but I am sure there will be more chances to see this.
The day after this we stayed in shade and used the cafe WiFi to figure out our onward plans. We booked the following night to stay in Sihanoukville in a place that had airport transfer for our onward travel to Malaysia. Sihanoukville is a truly awful place and I would not recommend anyone to stay here. Our friends Issy and Konsti had warned us of this beforehand, although we needed to get to the airport on the following day so we just put up with it. We had seen the city on our way to Koh Rong island so knew a bit what we were getting ourselves in for, basically a huge, dirty, smelly, dusty building site, with rubbish absolutely everywhere. The roads are so unfinished that they just seem like dirt tracks with massive potholes due to the big machinery being used for construction everywhere. It is very unpleasant to ride in this city in a tuk tuk as it is so dusty. Fortunately our transfer to the airport was a taxi and not a tuk tuk. We didn’t stay outside for long in this city, we just went to the restaurant on the same street as our accommodation for dinner and then went back to our air-conditioned room for the night. The next morning we tried to get cash out for the airport transfer but both machines that we tried didn’t work for either of us, luckily there is always ATMs at airports. Frustratingly, we only needed about $2 more to cover the cost of the transfer and there are always fees to take any cash out but hey ho. It meant we had some for getting food at the airport, although this was pretty disappointing and expensive.
At the airport we noticed loads of people were wearing masks. We had heard about the Corona virus at this point but didn’t think masks would help much against a virus. We had seen people in the heavily polluted cities wearing masks prior to this, but in the airport it seemed to be almost everyone, apart from us. It felt very serial and strange. When we were waiting at immegration at the Malaysian airport there were even more people in masks. I have to admit I found it quite creepy. Then again, it was also quite comical at times, especially when seeing people with big beards and masks, or confused when they wanted to eat or drink but had a mask on, or with the mask around their chin but not covering mouth or nose – that is definitely not going to help against the virus!
On the flight into Malaysia, we saw palm plantations for miles and miles before we landed. Alex said this was because of the huge palm oil industry here. Whilst we were in Malaysia we saw adverts with captions such as “we love palm oil” which is certainly very different to the messages seen about palm oil back at home. The palm plantations were very beautiful to fly over, although it was a little sad to think that this was only there after massive removal of prime rainforest meaning so much less biodiversity in these areas. Alex also told me a bit about the palm oil industry, that he learnt during his environmental science degree. Apparently in order to be useful, it needs to stay at a high enough temperature, otherwise it solidifies and becomes useless. Whilst this is OK for local energy production in hot, tropical climates, when this is transported long distances for the Western market, it actually requires a lot of energy to keep it in the liquid phase, and this energy is likely to be of fossil fuel origin and therefore sort of defeats the purpose of being a supposedly “environmentally friendly fuel”, or at very least is very inefficient to use this as an energy source outside of these tropical climates. And that is without taking into account the deforestation that occurs to plant the massive palm oil plantations.
Anyway, after that slightly off-topic tangent I shall sign off with a summary. I would absolutely recommend the Angkor Wat Temples in Siem Reap, and for us, a day was sufficient to do the temples that we wanted. We also enjoyed just wondering around this city. I would also recommend getting a tuk tuk tour of the temples, you can hire bikes etc but they are far apart and it is ridiculously hot. Women need to cover up a bit for these temples, although men are OK in shorts etc. I did find other parts of Cambodia very beautiful, but only when not looking too closely. The Cambodian language very different to any I have any familiarity with and the Google translate app was not useful for us with this, which may be something to consider if you plan to travel here. Make sure you have Google maps downloaded for the area you are planning to stay, although that is useful anywhere new and not specific to Cambodia. Also on that note, also make a note somewhere that doesn’t require WiFi of the address you are staying. Several of our friends had recommended that we took USD while travelling in SE Asia as it is a universal currency, this was particularly helpful for getting to, and whilst in Cambodia, where they use it alongside, but almost more than their own currency. Due to using the USD, Cambodia felt more expensive than other areas we visited as the minimum payment, for the most part, is 1 USD – which is not the case in other countries we visited. Something I haven’t mentioned but was definitely distinct in Cambodia was that the rules for pharmacies were a lot more relaxed than in the UK, which in all honesty gave it a bit of a seedy feel in certain hostels. There were also “happy” pizzas and cookies being sold virtually everywhere which was very different to the Philippines, for instance, where drugs like these are considered a shootable offence, and not just by police. It was good to have been to Cambodia, although I am not convinced I will ever make a return trip there for a vacation. There were definitely areas I would have liked to get to while we were there, but I would rather go to other places that I have never visited before returning to this country to do them.
I hope you enjoyed this blog. Please feel free to share it and subscribe to get notified by email when I post more content. I am planning to write a post for Malaysia in the coming weeks and then I may do one from my time living in Northern Ireland, or covering lockdown times.
Travels with Lydia Jazzy 