Siem Reap - Second Lunch at Endora French Restaurant and Wine Bar

With our tummy filled from the first lunch, we walked on to find the French Restaurant for our second lunch! Hahahaha. What a weird trip this was turning out to be. Above is me, in front of the restaurant.  

Walking in, it was a bungalow style house, with gardens. I immediately knew I would love the ambiance here. I love such places.

Side track. opposite the restaurant is actually the big temple we visited the day before. And there was this super retro looking tuk tuk parked outside of it, so I just had to take a photo of it before going inside for my 2nd lunch. 

Inside the main dining room. Spacious, with classic tiles, and so much natural lights!

I also took a walk further inside and they have a smaller outdoor garden too. 

And perhaps even a private area for events? But when we were there, it was just us, and a table of two ladies seated there. 

First order, a local beer. I kinda preferred the one yesterday. This one was a bit bitter for me.

The husband ordered the classic duck confit, and it's been a while since I see it served as two duck legs! Good job! I was still full from my first lunch, so I decided to just have a simple cheese platter. 

Lo and behold! My cheese platter is amazing! I would not have imagine that I would get such a spread. If you order a cheese platter before in Singapore, you will know how pathetic a serving can be. This, this was beyond my expectation. And so much lovely bread too! I truly enjoyed myself. Although I was too full, I did finish up all the cheese, sharing some with my husband. The only thing I could finish were the meat chunks. 

And the total price? 30.50USD! I love Siem Reap! I need to come back more often for the food!

Siem Reap - First Lunch at Old Market

On our last full day in Siem Reap, we decided to have lunch at another French Restaurant. On our way there, we decided to go explore the old market. Since we have so much time and not much agenda for the day, I though it would be nice to just browse around the old market. While walking around, we walked pass the food section, and I guess the food caught our attention, cause we ended up eating here for our first lunch, lol.

You see, I have a soft spot for Asian food, specifically anything spicy or sour. And looking at all these cooked dishes kinda made me drool. It was the same in Thailand, but since my friends don't really want to eat at such stalls, I didn't have a chance to try many things there. But here, I was with my husband, so when I suggested to eat here, it wasn't just a suggestion, it was more of a statement, lol. Luckily he obliged. Probably cause he saw some bbq skewers around :P

One of dishes I wanted to try here was the sour soup. I bet they were made from tamarind. I love tamarind so much. And they have so many pots in front of the stall. So I picked this one to eat in. Actually, the stall next to it looked a lot nicer, but it was empty. And this stall was filled with people tabao-ing food, even though nobody sat down to eat. Given a choice, I would always pick the store with the most people, even if it looked more chaotic and dirty. I would trust the local people not to betray me when it comes to their food!

Look at that!

This is where they bbq some of the meat.

And this is what we ordered. I ordered amok again, cause I wanted to make sure it was the same as what I ate in Angkor Wat. It was totally different! This one here was so much nicer! I also ordered a bowl of sour soup. I just wanted to try and when I saw the lady putting so much inside a bowl for me, I told her not so much. But she didn't care, she continue to put more meat and vegetables and soup until the soup was full! Lol. I bet she was going to overcharge a tourist like me. 

My husband came back with two bbq package. I think was chicken, and the other was the minced meat bbq frog that I wanted to try too! So happy he got that! We sat down and asked for rice. We were also served with a dish of raw vegetables. Drinks were also served to us. The owner of the stall kept an eye on us as we eat. Sometimes telling me which vegetables to eat with which sauce. Again, it touches my heart that they care that I enjoyed their food. It also reminded me of a kind Korean aunty who also taught me how to eat green chillies with sauce long time back when I took my husband on his first trip to Korea. It's these small interaction with the locals that I enjoy the most when I travel. People can be nice everywhere. 

Here is the shop we ate at looking out from the inside. The total bill was just 6USD for two person, with all that dishes. I think it was average priced since we did ordered mostly meat dishes. I often read how you could have a nice meal for 1USD in Cambodia. I guess those days are over? Or maybe those who said it were vegetarians? Anyway, this was one of my favourite dining experience in a foreign country! Love it! We cleared everything, and the lady ask us to come back for more the next day :P

Siem Reap - Siem Reap River

 

Finally we are here to document about the Siem Reap River. I love walking along it. It connects the place we stayed to the museum, so we walked quite a large section of it. It's nice that it's shaded, and the walkway was quite comfortably wide. Various bridge connects it from one side to the other. The one above is from the first temple we went to, we had to cross over the river to get to the second temple (Wat Bo). 

I did not see the river at night time. I'm pretty sure it's lighted up too. We could see the wires and led lights anyway. I think I prefer to see it in the day time, with it's trees and dark green water. There were actually kids swimming in the river. Some fishing there. And many just sitting around it, drinking coffee or ice water sold by the vendors along the river. A very chill place to be.

I also saw some of the above at the river side. Do they just put these everywhere? Like it doesn't cost any money at all to make? How can you place such a beautiful stone so casually everywhere? Lol. 

A relaxing scroll up and down the river.

At one of the giant trees, we saw two hornbills! Two gigantic hornbills! I've seen hornbills before, lots of the in Pasir Ris Park in Singapore. But these in Siem Reap where huge! And so colourful too! Those in Singapore are just black and white, and act like crows these days. But here in Siem Reap, majestic!

Here is a video I took of the two birds :)

It was so hot that when I saw a couple eating some ice cream, I started looking for an ice cream vendor. What is cooler than eating an ice cream while walking besides the river? Ah, reminisce of my days in Hanoi lake. Ice cream instantly transform you into a kid again, and eating them under the hot sun is just one of life's simple joy :)

My coconut ice cream. The lady ask if I wanted nuts on top, yes please! The lady ask if I wanted condensed milk on top, yes please! I love coconut ice cream. I used to be able to get them for only 2.50rm from a stall at Midland Penang run by a thai lady. It had so many stuff in it, even bread! Sadly, the stall is no longer there.... 

As we walked nearer to the town area, we were looking for the night market. We came across the old bridge made of wood. Somehow I love this photo. Again, it reminded me of a place I've been to, and this time it was Florence....

We were too early for the night market. Nothing much was open yet. And looking at the things on sale, I wasn't really interested to try any of the food here. It was mostly fried, or thai dishes etc. I wanted traditional Cambodian food. 

Well, I did found my rotii here! Pratha with banana, condense milk, and here with chocolate too! I've been eating a lot of this at home, home made. And I wanted a taste of home, so I bought this, and it was kinda my dinner too :P

Siem Reap - Angkor National Museum Part 2

There is only one cool thing worth seeing in the whole museum, and that is the beautiful sandstone carving. Note that this is just my personal opinion. The benefit of the museum is, you can see these carving all cleaned up, and well, at eye-level! At Angkor Wat, some of the carvings are either high up on the roof, or way down low, or at some weird corner you can't get too. Too dark, too difficult to see? No problem. Come to the museum, pay a high price and see them nicely displayed here! Above was taken at the jewelry hall cause I like the gold leaf tree behind the statues.....

So, stone carving. Don't you think these looks rather Egyption like? Gah. Maybe I should go visit Egypt one of these days and confirm that once and for all!

Back to the carving. Look at this ridiculously detailed carving of I'm-not-quite-sure-what. Someone must have taken a long time to make this, right? But why? What was the purpose of it?

So many detailed carving here. 

Some in circular design too. 

I'm not gonna describe them all.

I just want to post them here so that these photos of mine are not lost.

And that I can remember all these beautiful work I once saw. All these beautiful work that someone once worked on.

So much dedication and passion.....

And monkeys!

 

And so ends our post on the museum. Again. I would advice against visiting it. 

Siem Reap - Angkor National Museum Part 1

 

Next we walked to Angkor National Museum. It was maybe a 20mins walk from Wat Bo? Along the river? Hahaha. We got a bit lost along the way, but we did enjoyed the river walk. I will post that separately. Google map asked us to walk thru a small road that was being repaired, so we spend some time walking up and down a segment of the road trying to see how we can get to the other side. We walked pass a group of workers a few times that some of them smile at me seeing how lost we were. That warms my heart somewhat, that they too see the comical side of things and could share a laugh with me.  We finally made it to the museum. The facade looked impressive. I was hoping it would be air conditioned! 

Some sign just next to the ticket counter. I'm just gonna say it, the price was totally not worth it. It was over 10USD to get in. And we got pretty confused over the layout of the exhibition hall. Plus, although the halls were air con, it was so low that it made it even harder to breath inside. If you are on a budget, or short on time, skip this place all together. Go straight to Angkor Wat instead.

But since it was on my to-do list, and after getting over the shocked of paying, I decided to just spend more time here. That was my thought before I actually found out how bad the air con was. They do have some water features around the ground floor of the museum. I guess that could keep the temperate down?

From some hall to the next, the connecting corridors were open aired. It was spacious here. It was easier to breath here than inside some of the halls!

One of the cooler exhibition hall was the hall of a thousand Buddhas. When you walked in, it was just amazing. Gold glow from some of the gold statue. And so many Buddhas all in one place. 

The walls all contained a small space to house individual Buddhas too. I though that was so cool! But I doubt any of these statue were meant for praying too. It was more of a Buddhist Art exhibit. 

When I went in, I was rather impressed with the walls and the Buddha it contained. But get this, when I was in Beijing 1 month later, I saw a similar wall inside the Forbidden City, and it was more impressive because all the different Buddhas were of similar size. So it kinda looked neater.....lol. Just saying.

The other cool thing was a fortune telling stick outside the hall of the thousand Buddha. I think I've never actually done this stick fortune before. This was probably my first time doing. Since there was nobody around, and since after paying such a high price to enter this museum, I might as well get my fortune told!

Here you go! My fortune for 2024. I'm still waiting for that rich widow! Lol.

Moving on, there was also a cool audio visual display of Angkor Wat sunrise and sunset. No, I didn't get to see either of them in real life. Maybe I'm not meant to watch any religious sunset and sunset in 2024? It didn't happen in Thailand, and it didn't happen here either. But every morning, I get the most beautiful sunrise right from my bedroom in Penang :) 

Oh yeah, an explanation of what I saw in Banteay Srei temple, the lion head guardians....