After 3 nights and 2 days in Bangkok, we travelled with a bus to Siem Reap. It was a 7 hours journey including crossing the Cambodian border. Luckily our e-visa we had arranged online earlier in June was still valid and everything went smoothly. We were prepared for all potential scams and rip-offs that we had read about numerous times, but nothing of it happened. So after a beautiful drive through the Cambodian landscape, we arrived in Siem Reap in the evening. We went for a stroll through lively Siem Reap and had a short dinner over local beer, before we headed back to our cute hotel for a good night sleep. We had 2 long days ahead of us.
For the first day, we decided to hire a tuk tuk driver to bring us to the Angkor temples furthest away. We started with Banteay Srei, sometimes also called the Lady temple, as it is known for it red sandstone and beautiful detailed carvings. I will not go into describing how astonishing these temples are, because it won’t give them justice. You will get the idea looking at the pictures, but really you have to come here yourself to see it. After Banteay Srei we visited the Landmine Museum, before visiting the temples Pre Rup, Ta Prohm, Ta Keo and ending the day on the hill of Phom Bakheng. On the second day, we hired bicycles and visited Angkor Wat and the temple city Angkor Thom. In review, for us Angkor Wat is really impressive because of it size, but really every temple is so different and worth a visit with Ta Phrom being our favourite in the end. For all Tomb Raider fans, this is where a lot of the film was shot. For us, it was simply impressive to see how nature has the last word here. Trees are growing over and between the temples everywhere, creating a sight out of this world. We were so happy that we came here in raining season as well, as it meant everything was incredibly green and there were not so many tourists around as normal. You could actually manage to have bits and pieces of the temples for yourself now and then.
It was a short visit to Cambodia, but one we will not forget! The next day we used to sleep-in properly, have a nice local lunch and do some website work before heading to the airport to catch our flight to Luang Prabang in Laos.
