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Daniel's TravelsDaniel's Travels
  • Trips
    • Central Asia on Bicycle
      • Preparation
      • Iran
      • Turkmenistan
      • Uzbekistan
      • Tajikistan
      • Kyrgyzstan
    • Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Borneo
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Thailand
    • Cambodia
    • Laos
    • Vietnam
    • Japan
  • Equipment
    • Trekking Bike
    • Electronics
  • About Me
Relaxing in a Perfect Beach Hut on Koh Rong

Relaxing in a Perfect Beach Hut on Koh Rong

Feb 9, 2018

Only 20 km off the coast from Sihanoukville lies Koh Rong, a laid back small tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand. It is a very calm and peaceful place and the three days we spent there in a simple beach hut were some of the most relaxing at all on my whole travels. And the weather gods were also on our side.

Staying in a Beach Hut at 4k Beach

There is not too much choice when it comes to accommodation on Koh Rong. There are a few fancy places for absurd prices (I saw a villa for $5000 per day), but most of the accommodation offered on the island is rather simple. But that’s exactly what I was looking for. So we found these cute beach huts at the 4k Beach on the South East coast of Koh Rong. The bungalow was built on stilts and made out of wooden boards. This meant that it was by no way sealed, and I heard stories that during heavy tropical rain, it can happen that the hut is leaking and the bed gets wet. There was also no hot shower, and the electricity on the island was sometimes not working. We could hear funny animals sounds (that we were unable to identify, my guess is: frog) during day and night. As I said, really simple conditions, but incredible romantic and beautiful.

Our Hut on Koh Rong
Our Hut
Beach Hut Resort on Koh Rong
Beach Hut Resort
Inside the hut in Koh Rong
Inside
View from Inside at Koh Rong Hut
View from Inside

 

I guess the name of the beach comes from its length (although it seemed shorter), but that’s really not important. What’s important is that since there is so little accommodation at this beach, it basically felt like we had the beach to ourselves. There were no noisy tourists, no loud music, no jet skis, parasailing, and so on. We could listen to the sound of the waves and the wind the whole day, and due to the open bungalow, also the whole night. It was really somehow too good to be true.

Happy Us in Koh Rong
Happy Us
Sunset on Koh Rong
Sunset
Ilinca's Castle on Koh Rong
Ilinca’s Castle
Completely Relaxed on Koh Rong
Completely Relaxed
4k Beach on Koh Rong
4k Beach

 

If there is one thing that I should complain about, it was to quality of the food. I don’t mind eating simple meals, but after having a fish soup one evening my stomach strongly protested, and since that day, I had more or less digestion problems. While I think it is perfectly ok for the beach huts to be simple, I think the kitchen of our beach hut resort should have taken better care of the hygiene. Sometimes there were dogs walking in the kitchen from the beach, etc. And along the beach there are not too many other food options available either.

About the Island

One day I went for a short run to the interior of the island, and there things are even simpler and less developed. Again and again though there were new bays with remote beaches, some cliffs, deep blue water, and peace. There is only one tourist village in the south of the island where there are beach parties twice a week and that’s where most of the noisy tourists stay. Apart from the bass of one of the parties during our first night, we did not notice anything from this village. What really surprised me on Koh Rong was the excellent mobile network at 4k Beach. We had high speed Internet that was faster than in most places in South East Asia that we had visited. Oh, I guess this would be a nice place for digital nomads.

Moving on to Laos

I guess I could have stayed on this island for another week easily, but as we want to see more places on this trip, we decided to move on to Laos after three nights on Koh Rong. I will miss Koh Rong and it was a forgiving end to our overall very mixed experiences in Cambodia. I hope I’ll make it back here again one day. And I also hope that Koh Rong will remain as underdeveloped for at least another decade and not fall to mass tourism as Sihanoukville did.

Sihanoukville: Corrupted Beach Paradise Turning Into a Chinese Casino City

Sihanoukville: Corrupted Beach Paradise Turning Into a Chinese Casino City

Feb 6, 2018

When we decided to move to the seaside after our rather disappointing visit to Phnom Penh, our travel guide warned us that even though the beaches are wonderful, the city of Sihanoukville is nothing spectacular. So with that knowledge, we took the 4.5 h bus ride down to Sihanoukville where we stayed at some people’s home, which almost caught fire one evening due to a bushfire caused by reckless neighbors.

Paradise Beaches in Sihanoukville

The positive things first: The beaches in and around Sihanoukville are truly wonderful, and most of them are still accessible, only a small stretch was a private beach where we were discouraged to enter (I don’t know if private beaches are legally allowed in Cambodia, but as corrupt as the country is, I can very well imagine). During our two full days in Sihanoukville, we spent several hours each day at the beach, as this was the only sensible thing to do there. One day we took our laptops with us, sat in a beach restaurant, and worked for several hours on our blogs while watching the sea and having drinks and snacks. It was really relaxing.

Independence Beach in Sihanoukvill
Independence Beach
Ochheuteal Beach in Sihanoukville
Ochheuteal Beach
Ochheuteal Beach in Sihanoukville
Ochheuteal Beach
Toyota Camry Transporter in Sihanoukville
Toyota Camry Transporter

 

Sihanoukville: A City in Transformation

I don’t know if Sihanoukville ever was a pretty city, but what is happening at the moment is really a shame. The whole city is a huge construction site, accompanied with the noise, dust, and other inconveniences. There are already numerous Chinese casinos, and currenty, several huge hotel and casino complexes are under construction that will flood the lovely beaches in future with thousands and thousands of tourists, with all its consequences. Somehow I am happy that I still could visit the beaches now, but at the same time it is sad that the corrupt government in Cambodia does not take any measures to preserve the natural beauty of the country. I guess some government officials made some good money in exchange for approving the construction of the up to roughly 100m tall hotel complexes.

Other than that, the city has one street down to the ferry where there are some bars and international restaurants and a few nicer hotels at the beach, a bit outside of the city center. But apart from that, there is really nothing interesting here for us.

How our Airbnb Accommodation almost burned down

If I haven’t mentioned yet that Cambodia is a highly corrupt country, I have another story, and in this one we were affected directly. In the afternoon, a neighbor started burning leaves in her garden, as many locals do her. But then she lost control of the fire, and the grass and bushes around the house caught fire. After an hour, half of the hill where we stayed was on fire, and the fire was also approaching the house in which we stayed in. After having packed all our belongings and having moved them outside in case of evacuation, we observed what was happening.

Even though several properties were endangered by the bush fire, nobody wanted to call the fire department. I learned a little later why. Nobody wanted to be the one to call the fire department because you have to pay a lot in advance for them to move out and put out the fire. It does not matter who actually is responsible for the fire, nobody cares. The same applies to the police and the ambulance, and I guess all other kinds of authorities.

Only when the landlord of our Airbnb home basically saw the fire 5m from his house, he basically took the bullet and called the firefighters. Of course they came late, with a hose that was way too short, and they only spread some water around the house, then they left again. The fires more uphill were not their concern, and I guess they continued burning for quite a while.

Luckily, due to the wet vegetation, the fire actually did not set any of the buildings on fire, and after two hours, Ilinca and I took our belongings back into the house. But it was a shocking experience to experience firsthand the consequences of corruption and that nobody cares for anything else but themselves. I also heard stories from our hosts of ambulances not picking up injured people because they did not get bribed, and hospitals letting people die for the same reason. A human life does not value much here…

Bush Fire in Sihanoukville
Bush Fire
Bush Fire in Sihanoukville
Bush Fire

 

Moving On

After two days, we have seen enough of this place, and we want to go to some nice beaches without all the annoyances that Sihanoukville offers. So we are moving on to Koh Rong, a small and remote tropical island that can be reaches in 30 minutes from Sihanoukville by speedboat.

History, Culture, and City Life in Phnom Penh

History, Culture, and City Life in Phnom Penh

Feb 3, 2018

After having visited Seam Reap, a highly touristic city without any charm, and Battambang, a much less touristic city but again without any charm, we were really looking forward to moving on to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. We were expecting a good mix between history, culture, and modern city life. But looking back, Phnom Penh did unfortunately also not live up to our expectations and we were happy to leave the city after three days.

The Genocide Museums in Phnom Penh

After having seen the Killing Caves in Battambang, we were slightly prepared to what we encounter when visiting the infamous Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields museum in Phnom Penh which remember of the genocide that happened in Cambodia only 40 years ago while the Khmer Rouge were in power. I don’t want to go too much into history in this blog post, but for everybody who is interested in learning who the Khmer Rouge were and why they killed millions of innocent Cambodian citizens, I can recommend reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge .

As a short summary, the Khmer Rouge was a communist movement that developed in the late 60s and with strong support from China and northern Vietnam wanted to impose a pure communist system on Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge’s army entered Phnom Penh and overthrew the corrupt military dictatorship. In a first step, all people were driven out of the big cities, incl. Phnom Penh and were forced to work in agriculture in order to make Cambodia a self-sufficient country. In the following 4 years, people with different views or which the Khmer Rouge suspected of being threats to the political system, were arrested, tortured, and executed once a confession has been signed. And the prisoners were tortured in the worst ways imaginable until they signed a confession of their crimes they did not commit. There was basically no way for a prisoner to get out again as from the regime’s point of view, it is impossible that they imprisoned someone by mistake. And worst of all, once a victim signed a confession, all its family members were imprisoned as well.

Although there are now exact numbers, it is estimated that 1.5 – 3 million Cambodian citizens were killed during the four years of genocide, and it is only thanks to the Vietnamese that defeated the Khmer Rouge in 1979 that this number is not even higher.

Tuol Sleng Prison

Tuol Sleng was only one out of many prisons over the whole country. It was established in a former school complex where the class rooms were transformed into prison cells and torture rooms. Up to 50 prisoners were locked up into a single class room whenever they were not being tortured. Nowadays it is a museum that displays the unfiltered truth of what was happening here during the years of the Khmer Rouge, the torture chambers, the tools, the prison cells, and the pictures of thousands of the victims that were found in the archive once the Khmer Rouge’s soldiers were driven out of town by the Vietnamese in 1979.

Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh
Tuol Sleng
Memories to Victims in Phnom Penh
Memories to Victims
Building A in Phnom Penh
Building A
Torture Room in Phnom Penh
Torture Room
Building B in Phnom Penh
Building B
Singe Cells in Phnom Penh
Singe Cells
Single Cell in Phnom Penh
Single Cell
Prisoner's View
Prisoner’s View

 

The Killing Fields

Once a prisoner has signed his confession, he was removed from the prison with dozens of other prisoners during the night, transported secretly outside of town to a place that is now called the Killing Fields. There, the prisoners were brought to the edge of a mass grave and beaten to death with primitive tools such as hammers, machetes, bamboo sticks, and so on. The reason was that bullets were too expensive and would make too much noise. Afterwards their body was dumped into a mass grave. Some of them held up to 450 bodies.

When the Killing Fields were discovered after the liberation from the Khmer Rouge, all the mass graves were exhumed, so nowadays the graves are mostly empty. But during heavy periods of rain, some bones still make it to the surface. In memory to all the victims killed here, a pagoda containing hundreds if not thousands of skulls was erected on the site.

Mass Graves near Phnom Penh
Mass Graves
Magic Tree near Phnom Penh
Magic Tree
Killing Tree near Phnom Penh
Killing Tree
Mass Grave near Phnom Penh
Mass Grave
Killing Fields near Phnom Penh
Killing Fields
Memorial Pagoda near Phnom Penh
Memorial Pagoda
Memorial Pagoda near Phnom Penh
Memorial Pagoda
Skulls of Victims near Phnom Penh
Skulls of Victims

 

The Royal Palace

The cultural highlight of Phnom Penh is the royal palace which is located east of the city center at the Mekong River. On 17 hectares, there are numerous beautiful buildings such as the throne hall, the Moonlight Pavilion, the Silver Pagoda, and a few more. As the king also resides in this area, some parts of the Royal Palace were closed to public. What I liked a lot when visiting is that the palace is by no means as overrun as Angkor Wat near Siem Reap or the Royal Palace in Bangkok. One of the reasons might be that the admission fee for the temple was $10 each, which seems a little overpriced for what it had to offer. But nevertheless, I do not regret having visited the palace.

Moonlight Pavilion in Phnom Penh
Moonlight Pavilion
Throne Hall in Phnom Penh
Throne Hall
Terrace of the Throne Hall in Phonm Penh
Terrace of the Throne Hall
Bronze Palace in Phnom Penh
Bronze Palace
Throne Hall in Phnom Penh
Throne Hall
Some Murals in Phnom Penh
Some Murals
Stupa in Phnom Penh
Stupa
Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh
Silver Pagoda

 

The National Museum

Now we get to the cultural lowlight of Phnom Penh. Having visited the beautiful National Museum in Siem Reap a few days ago, we thought that the capital’s National Museum has at least as much to offer. Unfortunately that was not the case at all. First, when arriving, we saw that the admission has just recently been doubled to $10 (excl. audio guide). And second, I have never ever seen such a poorly maintained museum before. It was dirty everywhere inside, and as it was an open air museum, birds flew through the museum and released their excrements on whatever was underneath. Nobody in the museum seemed to feel responsible to clean the descriptions of the exhibition items from the bird shit, the floor was dirty, and the exhibition items themselves were also only in mediocre condition. What a shame. As taking pictures was forbidden inside the museum, you just have to believe me on that.

National Museum in Phnom Penh
National Museum

 

Phnom Penh as a City

Apart from the few attractions above, Phnom Penh is really nothing special. It is just another big cities, and not a particularly beautiful one. The food was very good in general, we got to enjoy some Moroccan, Indian, and local dinners while we were there.

City Court House in Phnom Penh
City Court House
Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh
Wat Ounalom
Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh
Wat Ounalom
Wat Botum Park in Phnom Penh
Wat Botum Park
Another Park in Phnom Penh
Another Park
Ugly Building in Phnom Penh
Ugly Building

 

But traffic was just insane. There is traffic jam everywhere, people driving as if there were no rules, and worst of all, even when walking on foot, it was dangerous as the whole sidewalk was parked with cars and motorbikes and hence we had to walk on the streets every now and then. So in the end we always hired a Tuk Tuk for getting from one place to another. Not because of laziness, but for safety reasons.

Two Dogs on a Motorbike in Phnom Penh
Two Dogs on a Motorbike

 

Also, there are some safety concerns when walking on the streets in Phnom Penh. When we arrived in Phnom Penh, our driver warned us about bag snatching that has become very popular in Phnom Penh. Bag Snatching means, that two people on the motorcycle drive next to you, grab your bags, with force if necessary, and drive away with it. As people tend to hold on to their bags, in addition to the loss of valuables, there are regular injuries of the victims due to being dragged behind the motorcycle. Luckily, Ilinca and I have not been confronted with it, but some friends we met the same day reported that they observed that someone almost had his phone ripped out of his hands on the street. And on the same day, my friend’s kindle had been stolen out of his back pocket.

After hearing all these stories, we were both not enjoying Phnom Penh that much anymore and we were glad to leave the city again after three days.

Bats, Wine, and Temples around Battambang

Bats, Wine, and Temples around Battambang

Jan 29, 2018

After Siem Reap, Cambodia’s tourist magnet, we wanted to visit a less touristic city, so we decided to move on to Battambang, Cambodia’s fourth largest city and an absolutely ordinary city without any highlights. It was ordinary to such an extent that we did not take our camera even once into the city. That does not mean we hated the city, it was interesting to move around in a city where many Cambodians live and observe their lifestyle. It’s just not very picturesque. Luckily the surrounding area has a few things to offer such as numerous temples, one of only wineries in the country, and most excitingly a large cave system where millions of bats live during the day and fly out to hunt every evening.

The City of Battambang

With a population of around 150’000, Battambang is not a huge city. However, taking into account the whole province, it is more than one million people, and therefore there is always a lot of traffic in and around the city. And as in other countries in this region, the traffic is unorganized and riding a motorbike requires a lot of attention because red traffic lights seem to be only a recommendation here and there are sand patches and pot-holes everywhere. And even when driving carefully, it is not completely without risk, especially at night.

The Caves at Phnom Sampeau near Battambang

For me the main attraction close to Battambang were the caves in Phnom Sampeau, a huge limestone rock in an otherwise flat area of Cambodia.  There are several caves at Phnom Sampeau, and while the cave system is by far not as extensive as in Mulu National Park in Borneo, they are still impressive to visit.

Bat Exodus at Bat Caves

Imagine one million bats that get hungry in the evening and all of them exit their caves in which they stay during the day within 60 minutes. If you break this number down to seconds, that’s around 300 bats per second. I have no clue if there only live half a million or several million bats in this cave system, but the following video gives you a good impression of the steady stream of bats that start flying out of their cave at around 17:30. Ilinca and I left after 30 minutes, but a local guide told as that it takes up to one hour for all the bats to leave the cave. The voice in the background is from the Buddhist prayers of a nearby village.

Together with the bats, also an awful smell exits the cave. And as we were standing only about 20 m from the cave exit, we got a good portion of it. But this was secondary, as it is really one of the most amazing spectacles of nature that I have ever seen. And since bats feed on mosquitoes, they contribute a lot to the well-being of the people living in the villages around there.

Sunset at Bat Cave near Battambang
Sunset at Bat Cave
Bat Exodus near Battambang
Bat Exodus
Bat Exodus near Battambang
Bat Exodus
Feeding Ground near Battambang
Feeding Ground
Bat Swarm near Battambang
Bat Swarm
Bat Swarm near Battambang
Bat Swarm

 

Massacres at Killing Caves

Some of bat cave’s neighboring caves are known as the Killing Caves, because during the genocide in Cambodia in the late 70’s by the Khmer Rouge regime, the caves were used to dispose of thousands of slaughtered citizens. After executing the victims at the rim of the caves, the bodies were thrown down into the caves. Nowadays, a memorial and a reclining Buddha incl. a glass vitrine of skulls that have been collected from the caves reminds visitors of the cruelties that the Khmer Rouge regime committed. I will write more about the Khmer Rouge regime after my visit to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital.

Killing Cave near Battambang
Killing Cave
Killing Caves near Battambang
Killing Caves
Killing Cave near Battambang
Killing Cave
Killing Cave near Battambang
Killing Cave
Memorial of Killing Caves near Battambang
Memorial of Killing Caves
Memorial of Killing Caves near Battambang
Memorial of Killing Caves
School Girl near Battambang
School Girl

 

Wat Phnom Sampeau

On top of the limestone rock that contains all the caves is a small pagoda. While the pagoda itself was not really that stunning, the location on top of the rock was very beautiful and the numerous monkeys also added to the atmosphere.

Wat Phnom Sampeau near Battambang
Wat Phnom Sampeau
Wat Phnom Sampeau near Battambang
Wat Phnom Sampeau
Wat Phnom Sampeau near Battambang
Wat Phnom Sampeau

 

Cambodian Wines

I learned once in a wine seminar that the tropical climate is not really ideal for growing grapes and producing wines. That’s why I was very surprised to find a winery close to Battambang. As we were passing there anyway on our way to some temples, we went for a wine tasting.

We had been warned by our guidebook that the wine is not comparable to high quality wines, and I partially have to agree to it after having tried their red wine. However, it is also not undrinkable, and as with every wine, the more you drink, the better it gets.

A Simple Wine near Battambang
A Simple Wine
Cambodian Winery near Battambang
Cambodian Winery
Wine Tasting near Battambang
Wine Tasting

 

I was briefly thinking about buying one bottle as a souvenir and for drinking later on the trip, but at a price of $15 per bottle, the wine was definitely not worth it. In Europe, such a wine would cost at most $5.

Some more Temples

During our day outside Battambang we also visited a few lovely temples. But after having been to Angkor Wat, none of those temples were really impressing to us. Maybe we should have ended our visit to Cambodia at Angkor Wat, and not start it there…

Phnom Banan near Battambang
Phnom Banan
Phnom Banan near Battambang
Phnom Banan
Phnom Banan near Battambang
Phnom Banan
Phnom Banan Restaurant near Battambang
Phnom Banan Restaurant
Snoeng Pagoda near Battambang
Snoeng Pagoda
Snoeng Pagoda near Battambang
Snoeng Pagoda

 

Next Stop: Phnom Penh

Two days in Battambang are really enough. We think we have seen everything that there is to see around here, so we are looking forward to moving on to Phnom Penh.

Ancient Temples and Cities in Angkor

Ancient Temples and Cities in Angkor

Jan 27, 2018

Our first stop in Cambodia is Siem Reap, which is the gateway to some of the world’s most impressive archeologic temple areas. The most famous of the temples is Angkor Wat, but there are hundreds of temples in the area that spreads over 200 m2, and couple of those temples are at least as impressive to visit as the tourist-infested Angkor Wat. The setting in the middle of the jungle makes the visit of the ruins especially beautiful as most of the temples are embedded and sometimes even overgrown with trees. Ta Prohm even was the setting for the two Hollywood movies Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones – Temple of Doom.

Angkor Wat

The temple of Angkor Wat is the world’s largest religious building, and its dimensions are truly impressive when approaching the temple through its west gate. And seeing (and photographing) the sun rising over the temple is one of the must-do activities for every tourist. As I am a passionate photographer myself, Ilinca had no other choice than to get up at 4:30 in order to reach the temple at around 5:30. This is one hour before sunrise. In the dark, thousands of people were gathering around the small artificial lake in front of the temple to get the best shot(s) of the temple during dawn. I had to squeeze myself somehow in between all the tourist to also take the mandatory pictures. Interestingly, most of the tourists disappeared from the photo site 5 min after official sunrise because their tour continued to the inside of Angkor Wat. The most beautiful moment however was about 15 minutes when the sun was rising behind one of the temple’s towers. Well, good for me and the other patient photographers, as there was suddenly a lot of space for taking the best pictures of the day. Even though I usually hate big gatherings of tourists, I’m glad I could jump over my own shadow for this one, as it was really a very special atmosphere.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Sunrise
Sunrise Crowd at Angkor Wat
Sunrise Crowd
Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Sunrise
Ilinca at Sunrise in Angkor Wat
Ilinca at Sunrise
Early Morning at West Entrance of Angkor Wat
Early Morning at West Entrance

 

Later during the day, we then also visited the interior of Angkor Wat when most of the tourist groups were already visiting other temples. However, from a close-up view, apart from some nice mural reliefs on the outer walls, Angkor Wat was not that impressive at all as the temple was not in the best condition anymore and it was still quite full of tourists, some of them climbing the temple to take pictures, etc. So it is not a crime to only enjoy Angkor Wat from the exterior and rather spend more time inside the smaller temples in the area.

Inside Angkor Wat
Inside
Mural Relief inside Angkor Wat
Mural Relief
Sunset View of Angkor Wat
Sunset View

 

Angkor Thom Temples

Just like Angkor Wat, also Angkor Thom was actually one a whole city, but because only the religious buildings were built from stone, the rest of the settlements decomposed much quicker, so nowadays only the temple ruins are still visible. And Angkor Thom was actually much larger than Angkor Wat, and there are several temples to be found. The most famous of them is Bayon Temple with its around 200 rock faces and about 50 towers. Also there are many mural reliefs to be found on the temple walls. Being the second most famous temple, Bayon Temple was also overrun with tourists, but definitely worth the visit.

Rock Face at Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom
Rock Face
Bayon in Angkor Thom
Bayon Temple
Mural Relief at Bayon in Angkor Thom
Mural Relief
Rock Faces at Bayon in Angkor Thom
Rock Faces
Ilinca and Rock Face at Bayon in Angkor Thom
Ilinca and Rock Face

 

Another temple inside Angkor Thom is Baphuon, known for its very steep stairs (that prevents tourist from climbing it). Baphuon is by far less interesting as it is mainly a huge rock pyramid without lots of decorations on it.

Baphuon inside Angkor Thom
Baphuon
View from Baphuon inside Angkor Thom
View from Baphuon

 

Ta Prohm Temple

Being the setting for two Hollywood movies, this small temple in the middle of the forest was literally overrun by tourists and several times we had to queue to simply walk to the next section of the temple, not even mentioning for taking a photograph. But again, it was worth the visit as it is really amazing seeing nature claiming back its territory, which is visible by the many trees that actually grow on top of the temple’s walls.

Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm in Angkor
Ta Prohm

 

Smaller Temples in the Area

Most tourist groups restrict themselves to the three previously mentioned big temples. That makes visiting the smaller but sometimes equally stunning temples a pleasure. The first one of them is Preah Khan, which also used to be a whole city and from which at least the foundations walls and a few halls were still intact. Same as in Ta Phrom, nature is also trying to get back its land and the combination of trees and ruins is wonderful.

 

Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan
Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan
Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan
Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan
Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan
Preah Khan in Angkor
Preah Khan

 

Neak Pean Temple is located on an artificial island inside a large artificial lake. The temple itself however is not that impressive compared with its many neighbors.

Neak Pean in Angkor
Neak Pean
Neak Pean in Angkor
Neak Pean

 

Ta Som Temple one was my favorite, as it has the nicest view of a tree overgrowing the gate to one of the temples. In addition, this temple does not seem to be on the list of favorites for tourists, so there were almost no tourists around during our visit.

Ta Som in Angkor
Ta Som
Ta Som in Angkor
Ta Som
Ta Som in Angkor
Ta Som
Ta Som in Angkor
Ta Som
Ta Som in Angkor
Ta Som

 

East Mebon and Prae Roup were two more temples that we visited. They are nice, but not that special again.

East Mebon in Angkor
East Mebon
East Mebon in Angkor
East Mebon
Prae Roup in Angkor
Prae Roup
Prae Roup in Angkor
Prae Roup
Prae Roup in Angkor
Prae Roup

 

About Siem Reap

The city Siem Reap itself has nothing special to offer and it is a shockingly touristic city without any charm. As in Thailand, there are massage shops, bars, restaurants, hotels in all categories and everything that makes the tourist happy. The only reason to stay in Siem Reap are the temples nearby. So after we were done visiting the temples, we soon decided to move on to Battambang.

Monks on Tuk Tuk in Angkor
Monks on Tuk Tuk
Pub Street in Siem Reap near Angkor
Pub Street
Tuk Tuk Selfie in Angkor
Tuk Tuk Selfie

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