Day 11 — Siem Reap, Cambodia

6/19/2023 Monday

Itinerary:

• Angkor Wat Temple
• Ta Phrom Temple
• Bayon Temple
• Phnom Bakheng Temple

Today, we woke up early as our tour guide was going to pick us up at the hotel around 7:40am. When he arrived at the lobby and saw that Madison was dressed in shorts, he told us that she would not be allowed to go to the third floor of the temple even though I told him that we bought some scarves to cover her legs. He said that everywhere else will allow her to cover in scarves except the third floor. He said that he has time to wait for her to go and change. So, Madison went quickly to our room to change.

After changing into a long dress, we followed the tour guide to our van that was waiting outside. We felt sorry for the other guests that were waiting inside the van as this was a shared tour. Luckily, everyone was understanding. Next, they went to pick up another couple from a different hotel before taking us to their office which was a coffee shop while they wait for everyone to show up. We waited quite a while before they divided us into different vans. We were with another 2 groups for the tour. First, the tour guide took us to buy the tickets and there was different lines for different pass based on the number of days. We bought the 1 day pass but you can buy the 3 day pass if you would like to return to see other temples for more than 1 day as it cost $37 for a 1 day pass and only $62 for a 3 day pass. They took our pictures when we paid for the tickets and we had to show our tickets at each temple that we visited. After getting the tickets, we went to Angkor Wat and the tour guide explained a lot of the history to us. It’s amazing how they were able to build and carve Angkor Wat in the late 12th century. The tour guide also took pictures of us and he also taught us different poses to make the photos more interesting. Also, he mentioned that they only have about 15% of tourist back compared to pre pandemic and that’s why we don’t see a lot of people and also there was no line to go to the third floor. It used to be at least an hour of wait time as they only allowed 100 people at a time but since there are not many tourists, we don’t have to line up. Also, it was closed yesterday as it was full moon, so we got super lucky that we get to visit the third floor. It was a pretty steep stairs to climb and although I was afraid of heights, I still managed to climb up.

 

After spending a couple of hours at Angkor Wat, he took us to lunch at a local restaurant before heading to Ta Prom where Angelina Jolie made it famous with her Tomb Raider movie. We took some pictures there posing as Angeline Jolie. It was fun. This was the temple that the King built for his mother.

Next, we went to Bayon which is the temple that he built for himself. There was a lot of big red ants and one of the person in our group was bitten. 

We admired the carvings before heading to Phnom Bakheng Temple which was one of the oldest temple built in the late 9th century to see the sunset. This temple was built even before Angkor Wat. The tour guide took us to a shortcut route to go up the hill. This route was previously taken only by the elephants who took tourists for a fee of $45 but since the pandemic, they had banned the use of the elephants. After the sunset, we were taken back to our hotels. 

We got really lucky as the weather forecast showed some rain but we didn’t encounter any rain at all in Angkor area. But when we reached our hotel, we did noticed some water on the ground, so it had rained earlier at our hotel area.