Siem Reap - Siem Reap River

 

Finally we are hear 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....

Siem Reap - Wat Bo

Continue on with more temple visit. I read up that Wat Bo was a famous temple in Siem Reap. I decided to come visit cause I also have a friend name Bo, although he is from Myanmar instead of Cambodia...Anyway, my husband with his GPS took me here. And although the GPS said this was Wat Bo, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Oh well. A temple is a temple, and it calls for us to go in and pay a visit and offer our respect. We actually walked pass this entrance a few times before going in. There was a man, maybe a beggar, seated at the gate initially. Maybe we might have freaked him out, cause we kept walking past him and talking in foreign languages :P 

Inside the temple ground, there were a few buildings scattered around. To call it a temple ground was a bit of an understatement. It actually felt more like a private estate? Like walking into a small village? Cause there wasn't really any boundaries. And people do live inside. There were also dogs around. 

There were a few grand halls that we saw. But we still had no idea which one was Wat Bo. But based on google GPS, we decide to climb one of the stairs to the second floor to explore.

I guess this was Wat Bo? Till this day, I am not sure :P  But there was nobody upstairs, so we just wandered in, sit around and looked at some of the old items displayed there. Yeah, I do make myself rather at home at religious homes. I don't know why that is. Except for maybe mosque. I don't go to mosque often enough cause I'm usually not allowed inside....

Back to the compound of the temple, you can actually walked all the way inside deeper and deeper.

We saw an ancient stone arch inside that looked like something from Angkor Wat's period. Cool!

We also saw many of these. Not sure if they are graves? They are definitely memorial stones as there are names and year engraved into them. I'm just not sure if urns etc are placed in them. Again, I wander around looking at all of these with comfort. 

Wandering outside, there was a Buddhist school next door, and above is the decoration on the walls of the school. I love that there are pink flowers just above it, and the sun shinning though, so I snapped some photos of it. 

Here is a more closed up look. There were little monks running around, kids, probably teenager. I didn't take any photos of them. They looked rather friendly and cute. Just regular kids going to school.

There was also this Buddhist statue inside the temple ground, a small garden craved out for some calm and coolness. I love it here. I love the beautiful trees behind it. I think we came back to this spot a few times while still confirming if we were indeed, at Wat Bo, lol.

Anyway, it wasn't a waste. It's never a waste when you get lost travelling. It's just part of the journey. 

And so we left Wat Bo to make our way to the museum. A different carving greeted us at the same gate. I like how there is a different view when you enter vs when you leave. Bye bye Wat Bo!

Siem Reap - Lunch At Olive Cuisine De Saison French Restaurant

Taking a break from all the temple post, here's one of a nice lunch we had at a nice French Restaurant here. After finding out that France used to be in charge of Cambodia, I immediately suggested that we look for French food to try here. We did the same in Vietnam and the Blue Tangerine was a pretty nice experience in Hanoi. The other few I tried in Ho Chin Min was not really worth mentioning..... Anyway, my husband found Olive Cuisine De Saison nearby, and since it had set lunch on offer, I said ok! Above is what the front of the restaurant looked like. 

We were seated inside, air con! We were the first customer, and was the only customer through out till just about leaving time, a single lady came in for lunch.

There were also outdoor sitting which looked pretty cool too. But nope, not in the heat, thank you!

The husband ordered a local beer, and it was served with olives and garlic! Nice touch! I immediately like the place already!

I ordered the set lunch, and the first course was burrata cheese salad. It came with freshly baked bread and butter. French bread in any French Restaurant is always top notched! Love it! I only ate two baskets full of bread in a restaurant in France. That was cause I didn't know they were going to refill the whole basket for me. Excellent service! Come to think of it, I think my favourite Spanish restaurant in Singapore once topped up my bread as well.... I absolutely love a good bread!

My husband ordered the lamb shank. It was served with a side of pasta. Both looked delicious. 

I ordered lamb rack that came with the set lunch. It was only one rack, accompanied by eggplant. The lamb was so juicy and tender! It was amazing! Easily one of the most delicious lamb rack I've ever tasted. 

For dessert, it was some pastry with strawberry cream. And as good service goes, they brought out two cutleries for me to share it with my husband. Excellent service. The only glaring thing that I was a bit sensitive to was when the service was geared more towards my husband. I hate it when they do that.

The total bill came up to 34.50USD. My set lunch was just 16USD, without tax or service charge! How awesome is that? I won't be able to get such a pricing for such a fine meal in Singapore! Actually, that was my pitch to get my husband to bring me to the French Restaurant. I told him we should eat it here in Cambodia where it was cheaper, cause now that we were both not working, we won't want to folk out extortion prices for fine dining in Singapore. Hahaha. Guess my pitch worked! Heck, it worked for two days in a row! This meal gave us such a good experience that we looked for another French Restaurant for lunch the very next day too!