Cambodia II: Siem Reap and Angkor

A note on the timeline!

This a blog from my back-logged travel log! This post describes my time in Cambodia with my wife from April 27, 2025 to May 2, 2025.

Sunday, April 27 - Arriving in Siem Reap

Our bus from Phnom Penh gets us to Siem Reap in about five and a half hours. The hostel we're staying at, Bokre Angkor Hostel, sends a remorque to pick us up, which is nice! We check in and drop our things off in our room and walk to a restaurant for some dinner.

There's a place called Golden Pumpkin only a 15ish minute walk away that's listed on the GF app. The restaurant is cute! There's a mostly indoor dining room that we enter through, but to sit outside we go beside the open kitchen to a lovely courtyard and patio area with a lot of plants. I'm not so hungry because I ate Kaila's ham and cheese sandwich from the bus ride not too long ago, so I get some spring rolls and mango juice. Kaila gets some red curry. The food is good, and we go back to hostel to get to bed earlier since we're planning on waking up early to see some of the farther out temples tomorrow!

Monday, April 28 -

We didn't get the best sleep last night, so we decide to push our Angkor plans back a day. That's okay because the three day pass we got doesn't activate til we go to a temple. We take our time getting moving and head to a place called Source Cafe for breakfast and coffee. Kaila gets an impressive smoothie bowl that comes in a big ceramic seashell and I get something called an "eggs bene-hash" which is essentially just an eggs benedict on a couple latke-like hash brown patties instead English muffins. It's really good!

We walk to a market after breakfast that has a bunch of local Cambodian art. This is pretty refreshing because it's actually things made by independent artists instead of the typical souvenirs that we see over and over at a lot of the other markets. We're able to find a magnet, some gifts, & a cool wood block print of a lotus flower (impressivley made by an artist who doesn't have arms).

Next we take a remorque out to the Angkor National Museum. This kind of wild thing happens where the driver asks us if we already have tickets to the museum and we say no so he takes us to a random tour agency. I check the museum website for the price and the folks at the shop say they'll sell us tickets at the same price, so I figure since they're doing this at a brick and mortar shop, they wouldn't be trying to scam us because then we could just write the shop a bad review online. Maybe that's too trusting of me, but the shop doesn't already have any bad reviews so we buy the tickets and are able to use them at the museum when we get there! Nice that the driver was looking out for who I assumed were his friends. Anyway, this museum is pretty similar to the National Museum in Phnom Penh, but has more information which is good. Many of the best preserved statues from the temples are here, and there are some informational videos, too. It feels like good preparation for seeing the temples tomorrow!

We get a tuk tuk back to the room and hang out there for a bit before walking back to the Golden Pumpkin for dinner again. Our walk back is very calm, the dimming light right after the sun has set and the cooling air match the quiet and calm of the streets.

Once we're back in the room, Kaila registers for her grad school classes that will begin in August! With this, our slow day comes to an end, and we go to bed early for another try at the temples tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 29 - Big temple day!

Today Kaila and I woke up reeeal early so that we could see the sunrise at Ankgor Wat, a huge temple complex that is regarded as the largest single religious structure in the world. This would be a day full of temples, since this region just north of what is now Siem Reap, Cambodia is the site of the ancient Khmer capital city Angkor. There are over a thousand temple ruins in this area! The Ankgor Archeological Park allows access to 50 of these temples through either a one, three, or seven day pass. We chose the three day option so we wouldn't feel rushed!

We woke up at 4:30am so that we could head out at 5am. We booked a motorbike trailer driver through our hostel and also arranged for some take-away breakfast (a pressed ham-cheese-tomato sandwich and a fruit cup). We meet our driver out front, his name is Mr. Mom (pronounced mum). He drives us to Angkor Wat first, which is 15 minutes away. We're dropped off in front of big moat, which is more like a lake that wraps around the outer wall of the temple complex. We cross a raised pathway that leads to the main west-facing gate as the sky is brightening. The scale of this place is wild. The outer wall within the moat is about 1000 x 800 meters. Below is an aerial photo from Wikipedia to give some scale!

Once we're within the wall, there's a raised path directly to the temple, so we can see it really well. There sure are a lot of people here! We walk about halfway to the temple, then stop and sit for a bit to eat our breakfast and watch the pretty clouds above the temple's towers (a similar view to the flag of Cambodia).

After breakfast, we move to enter inner walls into the main temple. As we enter through the gate/door, we can see some bullet holes in the sandstone from a shootout that happened here as Vietnamese forces were pushing the Khmer Rouge out of the country, which is a wild detail after learning so much about the Khmer Rouge at the beginning of our time in Cambodia.

The temple itself is built as an artifical mountain, with three different levels. Pretty much all the walls are sandstone blocks covered in intricate carvings. It's honestly a bit overwhelming to take in, since there is so much to see, but we still spent two and a half hours walking around the temple, exploring the different levels, and investigating the carvings. Around some of the internal walls are continuous carvings that depict scenes from Hindu epics and a historical scene of the Khmer king Suryavarman II, who commissioned the temple in the early 12th century.

Eventually we made our way back to Mr. Mom and he brought us to an area not too far away called Angkor Thom, which was the most recent capital city of the Khmer Empire. It was built around some existing temples, and some other temples in the area came after, like Bayon, a temple built in the late 12th/early 13th century. One of the first things we see when we enter are these little signs...

So we enter carefully! This temple is so cool. The layout was complex and dense, so walking through it felt like exploring some kind of ancient maze. It reminded me of a 3D adventure remake of the arcade game Pitfall I used to play on PS2 with my brothers when I was a kid. Our fears of imminent monkey attack were soon calmed by meeting a friendly temple resident!

This temple is known for these huge smiling faces of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, carved into its towers. There was something so interesting about exploring the halls then popping out in a courtyard with a new giant face looming right above. Almost a bit jarring, but not in a bad way! Just kind of made me freeze in my tracks and consider my surroundings more thoroughly.

As we're exploring the halls of the temple, I round a corner and see out to a door in the small wall surrounding the temple, and in walks a group of monkeys! Kaila makes fun of me for this part because apparently I ran over to her and exclaimed "KAILA MONKEYS KAILA A LOT OF MONKEYS" and brought her over to where they're entering the temple.

We watch the monkeys for a couple minutes, then they start to get uncomfortably close, so we continue exploring the halls of the temple. When we get to the other side, we need to walk between the structure of the temple and the outer wall to walk to the next temple, back towards the monkeys. By this time, the monkeys have found a place to sit on the ruins and there are fewer of them, only two adults and two babies. We also hear a tour guide say that these are the long tailed macaques, and it's really the smarter, short tailed macaques that you have to worry about attacking you, so we feel comfortable getting a bit closer and watching them longer before heading out to the next temple. On our way out, we see some more monkeys hanging out in a lightly forested area along the path. Some of them have gotten interested in a couple motorbikes parked here, which is pretty funny to see.

From the motorbikes, there is a walkway to a smaller structure before the next temple. Here is where we see our first short tailed macaques. There are two, and one of them is doing a kind of goofy walk while carrying a water bottle. Then it sits on part of the structure and actually starts drinking from the bottle!

Eventually the other monkey has had enough and tries to steal the water bottle, at which point they spill the water and sort of run off. There are two women near us when this is happening, and Kaila and I start heading off to the other temple when we hear the women yelling behind us. We turn around and one of the monkeys is trying to climb up woman #1! She expertly takes off her backpack and hands it to woman #2 while trying to shake off the monkey. I run up to them and the monkey runs off, so we all laugh it off a bit and start heading towards the temple when another pair of monkeys approaches us. Before we know it, one of them starts messing with Kaila's shoe then grabs her ankle, but when I lurch towards them it runs off. Pretty wild! We head off quickly across an elevated walkway over to the next temple, which is only a hundred meters or so away, but it feels cinematic to cross because we feel very exposed to these monkeys.

This temple is called Baphuon, and was built in the early 11th century.

From Baphuon, we walk down through a valley and back up to the temple Phimeanakas, which was built in the late 10th century. This one looked more like a pyramid, and really reminded me of the Mayan Chichen Itza ruins in current-day Mexico. There was a guide here pointing out a couple gibbons swinging high in the trees above us, which marks the third kind of non-human primate we saw today.

From Phimeanakas, we walk over to two more temples: the Terrace of the elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King from the 12th century. Much of these temples were made of organic materials that no longer exist, but there are still some elephant carvings.

We meet Mr. Mom at a road near these ruins and head off to the next temple, Ta Keo. We are dropped off and walk about 100 meters down a dirt path. This temple features a climb up a steep staircase.

After we climb back down, Mr. Mom takes us to our second to last stop of the day, temple Ta Prohm, which is known for its many 300 to 400 year old trees growing over its ruins.

The halls of this temple have many twists and turns, maybe even more than Bayon. It feels even more like an adventure video game moving through this one, with the additional sense of the temple being lost to time with all the overgrowth. It feels like there are secrets to uncover! And in some ways there are...

Does something feel out of place here? I'm not sure if I would have caught this if I didn't overhear a tour guide pointing it out. In the carving above, you might think the creature seems familiar. I personally think it resembles a stegosaurus, and I'm not alone in that opnion! There is no "academic consensus" about the animal being depicted, although the creature has it's own Wikipedia page titled Dinosaur of Ta Prohm that discusses some controversial takes. Some experts think the animal is more likely a chameleon, rhinoceros, a water buffalo, or a boar, with the "back plates" actually representing background foliage. Others believe the animal is not meant to represent a real creature at all, since other carvings in the temple depict mythical creatures. It seems that the idea the carving could be representing a dinosaur is generally brushed off since some people use it as "proof" that living stegosaurs overlapped with humans, however the Wikipedia article doesn't mention anything about how a depiction of stegosaur could mean the Khmer people simply had access to or stories about stegosaur fossils. There have been stegosaur fossils found in neighboring China and India, so this at least seems like it could be a possibility.

The last place Mr. Mom took us was Banteay Kdei. By this time we were pretty tired so we didn't spend too much time here, but this temple also had some impressively large trees. After a quick walkthrough, we also went across the street to see a "landing stage" at the reservoir Srah Srang. There were some funny desire paths here that said what we were thinking, which was mostly "please, no more stairs."

After this, Mr. Mom drops us back off at the hostel, and we make plans with him to pick us up again tomorrow. This was a packed day, but incredibly, we were back at the hostel at noon! A whole day before lunch. The rest of the day we took it pretty easy. We walked back to the Source Cafe to get some food (this time we both go the eggs bene-hash because it was so tasty). After lunch, we took advantage of the hostel's pool for an hour. Then we hung out in the room, reading and watching some Severance, only sneaking out to get some beef lok lak for dinner (still good, but it was better at the Pu Rock Cafe in Phnom Penh).

Wednesday, April 30 -

Today, because we're massochists, Kaila & I woke up at 4:30am again so that to have another go at seeing Ankgor Wat at sunrise. Yesterday I think we were a little impatient to get into the temple which means we didn't actually see the sun rise above the towers. So we get up, grab our packed breakfasts, and meet Mr. Mom out front. When we get to Angkor Wat, this time we take our time outside the main part of the temple. It's built in such a way that the sun lines up with the central tower during sunrise from the central path once a year on the spring equinox, but we make our own equinox by moving off to the side. This gives us a great view!

After sunrise, we head to a farther out temple called Banteay Srei, which takes about an hour in the motorbike trailer. This 10th century temple is regarded for its unique red sandstone and beautifully intricate carvings!

Near this temple is our next stop, Kbal Spean which is a temple much different than the others we visited. Rather than being a construction visible from a road, this temple is carved into sandstone a river passes over 1.5 kilometers into the jungle that we have to hike into to see the ruin.

It was a nice hike, and we mostly had it to ourselves. There were lots of critters to see along the way, too. Lizards, caterpillars, and so many butterflies. When we got to the river, the butterflies were even having some kind of cult meeting (bug pics to follow, skip the next three if you don't want to see).

The ruins at the river were impressive, but also a bit eerie. I think partly because the ruins are so much deeper in the jungle, but also because the layout of the ruins is so much different than any of the others we'd seen so far. The scattering along the river made it feel like these were much more ancient than other ruins, even though these weren't even the oldest we've seen.

After our hike down, Mr. Mom took us to one more temple: Pre Rup. This temple was different from the others we saw as it was mostly made of brick. It was also more actively undergoing restoration work.

After we walk through this temple, we reunite with Mr. Mom for the last time, and today we have him drop us off at the Source Cafe for lunch. We thank him for his service, then go in the cafe. I have a egg and avocado sandwich and Kaila has a salad. We go back to the hostel and hang out at the pool some more, where we see this gecko climbing on the glass on a window at the front of the hostel!

After the pool time, we see that there is another location of the Greek restaurant we ate at in Phnom Penh. It's right by the pub street and night market we want to check out, so we go there to get some french fries, another watermelon salad, and a mixed appetizer plate with a block of feta cheese, some veggie fritters, feta and phyllo dough pastries, dolmades, and olives. I also had to get another ouzo lemonade because that drink kind of blew my mind last time. The pub street is really loud but not as packed as the place we went out in Saigon. Maybe a slow day for tourists (it is Wednesday after all) or maybe there are just too many people getting up for sunrise. But as Kaila says, "you don't have to get up for sunrise if you stay up for sunrise" (we didn't do this lol). The night market is extensive, and we spend some time walking around along the street lined with vendor booths and also walked into a mall type space, but that ended up being really hot so we went back to our room shortly after.

Thursday, May 1 - Meeting the HeroRats

Today is our last day in Cambodia! Since we got up before sunrise the last couple days, we're starting today off right by sleeping in. We eventually go downstairs for some breakfast (veggie omelet and fruit), and realize neither of us feel like going out into the world quite yet. We decide to spend most of the day in the room, then in the afternoon, we go off to the visitor center of an international organization called APOPO, which is a Dutch acronym that means "Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development". APOPO trains dogs and African giant pouched rats to detect land mines and tuberculosis. They have worked across the world, but currently have mine operations in Angola, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Senegal, and Ukraine.

At the visitor center, we learn about how the rats work, see a demonstration of a rat surveying a field and locating some explosive material, and even get to hold one of the rats! They also show us a couple videos showing the rats working in the field. It's interesting to hear about this de-mining work, and we learn that they have dogs that confirm general areas suspected as mine fields, have armored machinery clear vegetation, then have the rats go in and locate the precise locations of mines for clearing by humans with metal detectors. This work means that humans are less at risk since they don't have to do all the surveying with metal detectors. There also haven't been any accidents with rats being killed on the fields here since they are too light to set off the landmines themselves! It's a very cool organization doing important work making the land safer for farming and children playing. We even get some cool merch to support them.

We get a tuk tuk back to hostel, then only go out again and check the Onederz hostel down the street (same hostel chain that we stayed at most recently, through which we booked our bus to Siem Reap) to see if they'll let us book another VET Air Bus to get to Bangkok tomorrow, because that's not an option from our hostel (and this hostel is much closer to us than the VET bus station). They let us, so we'll be back tomorrow. Then we go to a close-by grocery store to get some snacks. Once we get back to the hostel, we get some food at their restaurant and go to bed early since our bus leaves first thing in the morning.

Friday, May 2 - Off to Bangkok

We were able to book the Air Bus to Bangkok from that other hostel, so we wake up early (5:30am) to finish packing and make sure we get over to the other hostel in time for the pickup. We do, and even have time to get some coffee and breakfast! I get one of my favorite breakfasts I've had so far. It's another bai sach chrouk (pork and rice) dish, and the grilled pork is a great balance of sweet and savory. I love sweet meats! It also comes with a nice salty broth and some pickled veggies on the side. Unfortunately I have to eat it fast, because the guy that's bringing us to the bus station is here.

It's only like a 10 minute drive to the bus station, then we get on the bus and get some more croissants. The bus is another one of those "Air Buses" that has the big recliner seats and lots of leg room. This time, it's a double decker, and we're sitting on the top floor in the second row, which gives us a pretty good view out of the front "windshield"! It takes us about three hours to get to the border, where we get to wait in a long, hot line to get through Thai customs...

Thanks for reading!