We were sad to leave the islands of Cambodia as we had such an amazing time, however we’d knew we couldn’t spend much longer there as our purses would be empty and our trip to Bali would be cut very short!! The journey to Siem Reap was a long 12 hours on another sleeper bus, but this time the bus was extremely different to the ones in Vietnam. The beds were made for 2 people, so that meant me and George sharing basically a single sized bed on a moving bus for 12 hours… We decided in the end (even if it probably wasn’t the safest) to top and tail as that was the comfiest way of getting through this journey. I actually did manage to get some sleep on the bus and we finally made it to Siem Reap with the help from lots of Netflix!
We arrived in Siem Reap extremely early and got a Tuk Tuk to the centre of the city (the pub street). The Pub Street was absolutely dead at 7am (as you could imagine) but we needed somewhere to wait until we could check into our Airbnb at 12. We had booked the Airbnb with 2 of the other couples we had met on our travels for one of the boys birthdays. This was a massive treat and definitely a huge upgrade to anything we had stayed in before!
The Airbnb itself was absolutely perfect, each couple had a whole apartment to themselves. It was so nice to have some space to ourselves for a couple of nights, we could even cook in the kitchen downstairs which made it a little like home! The Airbnb also had a pool which we chilled in during the day. During the evenings we went for dinner in the pub street as we found this cheaper than cooking in the Airbnb and then had parties back in the apartment afterwards. The 2 nights in the Airbnb were so much fun and if anyone is ever travelling in a group to Siem Reap I would definitely recommend as it was still a really good price for what it was!
On our third day in Siem Reap we travelled to Funky Flashpackers Hostel (the biggest party hostel in Siem Reap) which is in the centre of the of the city. Now we did realise it was a party hostel before arriving but I don’t think we had fully thought it through after having 2 nights going really hard in the Airbnb. We arrived at 2pm and the music was playing ridiculously loud (because it was a pool party) and you could even hear it in your bedroom. It was literally like there was a speaker in the room! Now I sound like I am being extremely boring but we were SO hungover and this was not what we needed. We soon decided to hit the Burger King which was around the corner to the hostel and then have a chilled (which thumping music in your ear) evening as the next day we were waking up at 4am for the Angkor Wat sunrise.
We woke up on Sunday morning with only 2 hours sleep (as the music did not go off until 2) but still excited for the amazing sight we were about to see. The 6 of us travelled in a Tuk Tuk (very squished) to get to Angkor Wat and we arrived at the temple around 5am. After buying the ticket (which was $37) we then got dropped off outside Angkor Wat and walked towards the temple. The sun was beginning to rise as we were walking to the temple but we still had time to catch the full sunrise. As we approached Angkor Wat there were lots of people waiting outside across from the temple, we soon realised that this was the place to stand for the sunrise. The sun soon begun to rise and even though it was a tiny bit cloudy it was absolutely stunning. My breath was taken away by the beauty of the sun shining upon the temple; it was simply amazing.
Once the sun had fully risen and we had taken 1 million photos we made our way into the temple which also took my breath away. It was absolutely humongous. The ancient ruins were incredible and the fact that they were still one of the largest part of Cambodia’s society today made it even more fascinating. There were hundreds of people visiting the temple that day which amazed me. Hundreds of people coming to visit the same amazing historical feature of Cambodia; this was truly amazing.
Once we had spent a couple of hours in Angkor Wat we made our way to the other temples. We visited 5 temples in total and Bayon and Ta Prohm were definitely our favourites (see pictures below). We would also 100% recommend getting up early to visit all of these temples as by the time it hits 12pm the heat is unbearable to walk around in and the crowds are also way too heavy!
After the exhausting but absolutely amazing day visiting the Angkor Temples we made our way back to Funky Flashpackers where we spent one more night in the crazy hostel before our trip to Battambang. We were travelling to Battambang for 1 night and then heading back to Siem Reap for another night before our flight.
So I will finish this blog now but fully conclude it on the final post of Cambodia after explaining (in my next blog) about my trip to Battambang. But for now, bye bye Siem Reap and onto the next stop … Battambang!!
Adventure Awaits... 