Siem Reap - Second Day Breakfast at the Hotel

 

Apologies for the brief 20days break from posting. I had guest over at my place, and I also spent some time travelling to Beijing. These days I have more trips than time to post them! So many backlogs! But I'm back now! For a while at least. So let's continue with my Angkor Wat Adventure! 

Did you know that French once ruled Cambodia? Yeah, I did not. I know very little about Cambodia except that it was famous for Angkor Wat, and also Pol Pot. But the selection of books in the hotel kinda gave away that most people who visited here were French. 

I can't read much French, but I can roughly make out a little about this Le Club Des 5 book content from Enid Blyton! Lol. My brother has the whole collection when I was a kid!

It was a quiet morning in the hotel. I was rather anxious about how to visit Angkor Wat at this point. I didn't know how to get there, where to buy the tickets etc. I just know that I wanted to get there on this very day. I had taken down the whatsapp QR code of the tuk tuk driver that drove us to our hotel the day before, so I texted him to see if he was interested to bring me and husband around for a one day arrangement. Luckily, he said yes. Else I really wouldn't know what I'd do. I'd probably find another way, but I was really relief that he said yes. So on that morning, he was to pick us up at 8am, and breakfast was supposed to start at 7am. Plenty of time! So we made our way to the cafe to enjoy our breakfast. It was a rather nice quiet hotel. I like it cause it has a sleepy cat there, and also a friendly dog outside. I don't often warm up to dogs, but I did like the big puppy that followed us around yesterday evening. 

The breakfast didn't start at 7am. 7am was just the time the staff arrived to start opening up the cafe! After ordering, the food didn't reach us till around 730am! We ordered 3 sets of breakfast for the 2 of us. My friend don't do breakfast, and I see no point in wasting a perfectly paid breakfast set! So we ordered all 3 sets on both days we stayed there.

It was quite a substantial set. The omelette was just so so, but the other two set was quite nice. But it was quite a rush, and I had to eat the remaining of my baguette on the tuk tuk cause the drive also came at 730am!

I love travelling by tuk tuk. Is one of those slow joy of travelling. I love the roads of Siem Reap that is so green, and the wind in my face as we drove along. I told the driver that we needed to get tickets first, and lucky for me, he knew where to take us, cause I sure didn't! Apart from the ticket purchasing, I have told him all the temples I would like to visit, and he had quoted me 30USD. It was a bit on the high side, but I was quite desperate to see Angkor Wat on that day itself before the weather forecasted rain in the upcoming days! Anyway, it was still cheaper than booking a tour with a guide!

Interestingly, the tickets to Angkor Wat Archeological Park can be purchased at the Angkor Wat Panorama Museum. Now who would have guess that! Luckily there wasn't much queue to get an individual one-day pass to visit the park. Before landing here, I always though that Angkor Wat was a single location to visit. After landing here and reading up before the trip, I realised that I wasn't going to be able to cover every single thing in the park! So I've listed the following for my driver to bring us to: Angkor Wat (2h), Bayon Temple (1h), Preah Khan (1h), Ta Prohm (1h), Banteay Srei (1h), and Phnom Bakheng (1h). The "h" stands for "hour", and yes, you need at least 2 solid hours to see the whole of Angkor Wat alone! Factor in also maybe an hour for lunch. I also understand that my driver cost 30USD because Banteay Srei was a lot further off from the other temples. Lucky for me, it was a good arrangement, cause the long ride there actually gave us time to rest in between all the other temples!

Here's my 1-day pass ticket. You have to show it everywhere you go for entrance to the temples. I like it that it has my face on it :) Makes a great souvenir! And yes, it cost 37USD for a 1-day pass. There are also 3-days and 7-days pass you can get. And to be honest, for the amount of stuff we saw on that day, I don't think 37USD was expensive compared to the historical treasure we saw. Just note that before you come, please do your research and know where you want to go. It is a very huge park! For example,  Banteay Srei was a good 30mins by tuk tuk away! Do you really want to save money and walk or cycle there in the heat and dusty road? 

Let the adventure begins!