Siem Reap, Cambodia

We really loved Siem Reap and ended up staying for 2 weeks! The first week we stayed in an Airbnb apartment, but they wanted us to pay extra for the living room air conditioner. It was ‘hot’ season in Siem Reap. The air temperature was around 35C per day with very high humidity so a pool and aircon were definitely needed. We decided to look around town for new accommodation with a pool for our second week. Our friends captured our ‘big’ move to our new hotel on video😂.

This hotel across the street had a rooftop pool and because they had just changed ownership and only just re-opened, they gave us a great deal on a family room for only $28 USD per night!

Temples

Obviously, the big thing that people come to see in Siem Reap is the Angkor Wat complex and the temples. If you are interested in seeing detailed information on the temples we visited, check out the Angkor Temples post.

Food

We were happy to be in a new country with new foods to try. Continuing with our previous trend, we found a couple of new ice cream flavours to try:

And, some new beers to try, including one named ‘Krud’ 😂:

We found a restaurant called Khmer Taste that had really good value (most menu items between $1-2.5 USD) and they gave out free water and free peanuts. We ate there 1 – 2 times per day!

We also tried a few unique local delicacies like Tarantula and Scorpions. Even R, our non-meat eater, seemed to be OK with eating bugs.

Nightlife

Siem Reap has a few streets blocked off to cars at night loaded with bars, clubs and restaurants. It’s aptly named ‘Pub Street’. However, the whole area around there is full of restaurants and night markets.

The traffic was much better than in Vietnam, but was still crazy. Check out this intersection – no lights, no stop sign and cars going every which way.

Superbowl

While we were in Siem Reap, it was the Superbowl. The kids and I got up at 6 to walk down to Pub Street to watch it on the big screen (R joined us for the last hour of the game). The first bar we went to was full, so they told us they were also going to show it at the club across the street – we were the first ones there so we got front-row seats!

Landmine Museum

We rented motorbikes to drive around some villages and go visit the Cambodian Landmine Museum. The story of the founder Aki Ra is truly amazing (you can read about him here) and all the landmines and Unexploded Ornaments (UXOs) are ones that he actually de-activated and then brought to the museum.

Cambodia is full of landmines and UXOs due to the Khmer Rouge planting landmines and the U.S. dropping bombs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. The museum explains how landmines are activated and de-activated and the work that their foundation is still doing (in conjunction with the government, police and military) to continue de-activating mines and UXOs.

School Teaching

The person we rented the motorbikes from, asked us if we would be interested in teaching English at a village school one day. He told us that he was friends with the principal and that we should prepare a lesson to teach. We told our friends about it, and we all decided to do it together. So, we rented motorbikes again for another day to teach at the school and drive around some villages. The motorbike guy gave us some vague directions and showed us approximately where on the map the school was located. After driving around for an hour, we finally found the area and came across a school. They opened the gates and invited us in. The English teacher didn’t speak much English (the Principal’s English was better) and he showed us the classrooms and the one that was doing English that day. Since there were 4 of us adults, we divided the class into 4 and each adult took one of our kids and a quarter of the class and brought them to a different location in the school grounds to teach. The kids really didn’t speak any English so my original plan of having some conversations about Australia bombed out. So, instead, the Principal suggested we teach the students a short song. We decided to teach an Aussie song full of Aussie slang (G’day, G’day). The kids seemed to really enjoy it.

After teaching, we were going to go to the floating market, but after seeing the entry price decided not to. However, there was a nice spot at the ticket area to relax and have lunch along the lake.

When we got back to Siem Reap and returned the motorbikes, the motorbike guy asked why we didn’t make it to the school and told us that the Principal had been waiting for us for hours! What? Turns out, we went to the wrong school!! No idea why the Principal let the stupid foreigners into his school and take over the teaching!! 🤣🤣🤣

A Wedding and a Funeral

While in Siem Reap, were were fortunate enough to catch both a wedding and a funeral procession.

Next stop: Thailand