Cambodian Beaches

We decided to bypass the capital, Phnom Penh, and go straight to the beaches of Cambodia.

File this under: "Unexpected mode of transportation"

 The NIGHT BUS from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville was bunk-bed style. The bottom bunk was literally the floor of the bus and the "bed" was a doubles mat on one side of the aisle, that the girls shared, and singles (for the dads) on the other side.  I actually got more sleep than I would have imagined.

Before we made it to an island, we decided to give the coast a try.  Imagining Sihanoukville as an ugly port town, we went south to Otres Beach which is billed as a quiet alternative.  

Notes on Otres:

• We arrived to find our booking overbooked, so we had to scramble for a more expensive alternative.
• The "mainstreet" was a muddy potholed affair and many businesses were not operating this time of year (low season).  Thus it was difficult to find many food options, no walkable market, few restaurants.
• The water was quite WARM, really warm, but the beach was kind of trashy and the bracelet touts are persistent.
• We have recommended people skip the coast and head directly to one of the islands.
• This region is full of Chinese developers, which are shutting locals out of property and employment opportunities.

We booked a 3 island tour off Otres that included snorkeling and lunch on a long boat.  It turned out to be only 2 stops with a non-English speaking boatman.  He did collect these specimens for us to see... or for his dinner (not sure which, but they sat out in the sun for hours and died).   The visibility was not far beyond your toes, so snorkeling the shallow reef was creepy.

Our next stop was taking the speed ferry from Sihanoukville to Koh Rong Sanloem Island. We booked rooms at the swanky "The One" resort.  This was our most expensive lodging of the trip, but only $80 to compare with Western standards.  The Carrolls had a 2-room suite in a fairly new building. The Boyans' building next door was so new, it did not have hot water yet.

Pick your pleasure: room-adjacent pool or beach-front pool.

There was not a lot to do on the island (low season) so we spent our days lazing around, swimming in the warm, calm Saracen Bay, walking, or hopping from pool to pool.

Maya used YouTube to find portrait tutorials and spent lots of her free time practicing drawing. She really developed some amazing skills!

Angkor Wat

Two toodling towards temples in Tuk Tuks

Siem Reap was our base for touring the Temples of Angkor.  We secured 2 Tuk Tuks for the 6 of us to travel north of town for 2 days in a row to see various temple complexes.  

The first stop was the main temple of Angkor Wat. I wrote in my notes that none of the locations were TOO crowded, but there is plenty of crowd.  The girls wondered why so many (mostly young ladies) are dressed so fancy.  
HELLO!  INSTAGRAM PHOTOSHOOTS!
We used to refer to this phenomenon as "senior portraits"... where you would dress up and go somewhere scenic to have unnaturally lux photos taken of yourself.

Temple exploration was not a highlight for the girls.  They took offense to wearing pants in the heat and were uninterested in the history and archaeology.  While the area's claim to fame is "scene of Tomb Raider" it is far from a jungle playground of ruins that the kids can climb and explore freely.

Grandpa and Babçia helped to buffer the girls disgust with our itinerary.

We visited 3 temple complexes on Day 1.  Angkor Wat, Ta Prom, and Bayon.  

Ta Prom (Tomb Raider)

Most of us agreed that Bayon was our favorite temple. The large faces are everywhere you look!

Our first rainy spell - downpour at Bayon.  We knew most of our trip spanned the rainy season, but we hardly had any wet weather.... the first half of the trip.

On the second day, our hired Tuk Tuks took us farther (50 jarring kilometers of dirt road) to the intricately carved sandstone temples of Bantaey Srey. Then on to 1,000 Lingas waterfall where some local boys pointed out the green snake (pictured below).  The falls were just trickling now so we could still see the carved riverbed.

Siem Reap

We took a Giant Ibis bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  It took 8.5 hours and the border crossing was fairly straightforward and laid back (see below).

Welcome to Cambodian Customs and Immigration!

     We stayed at the European Guesthouse (Sweet Dreams), hosted by Mr. Nini.  This was the least expensive place we stayed, at $12/night. We thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality and the refreshing pool.  It is outside the hustle of Pub Street downtown yet within walking distance.  This was our base to explore the Temples of Angkor and surrounding countryside.

     Here we discovered that while US Dollars are accepted along with the local currency (Riel) they will only take bills in good shape.  No rips or old, dirty dollars! The banks will give them less than face value for damaged bills.

One of the first things we did was visit a silkworm farm.  It was very interesting and educational.  Plus, there were tiny kittens.

Returning from a temple outing one day, we split up.  The girls and I went to the Banteay Srei Butterfly Center, while the rest went to the Cambodian Landmine Museum.  

One night at dinner we were entertained by 5 year old "Maya".  She shared her milk-tabs (vitamins?) with us , sang the ABCs, and yelled at us for taking her picture.

2 for the price of 3 Fish Pedicures!  (Genna would not dip her toes.  I don't blame her!)

Genna preferred the luxury of having her hair shampooed for $2.  Each city we went then on, she sought out shampoos and planned her swimming schedule around it.

If you go to the market with (baby) Genna, you might get a few extra pieces of fruit or something new to try.  Everyone liked the BABIES!

     We did the 12-week, 2004 trip entirely on Lonely Planet books with no phone or internet.  Only a few hotels were pre-arranged.  We would arrive at a new town and go to the address of a guesthouse in the book where we hoped they had a room.  This time we had a reservation for every night, even if it was just booked 1 day ahead of time, and sometimes that didn't get through to the proprietor, but at least we had key information.  More of our booking choices were dictated by Bookings.com than Lonely Planet. In 2004 we only e-mailed our families from occasional stops at internet cafes.  Now we roll into a country, get a SIM card, and we are connected constantly. Hotels and transportation can be booked online. A large portion of our pre-trip planning was done on YouTube so there are fewer surprises since we saw exactly what to expect in videos.