Day 14 Sunday 5th April, Phenom Phen to Siem Reap

Today we travelled from the city of Phenom Phem to Siem Reap. We were picked up by our coach at 7.30am and a few people made jokes about Rob and me “slumming it” in the coach as we were the only ones to take the optional flight, earlier in the trip. Anyway, our coach was very luxurious with lounge chair seating so we had a lot more room than we would have had on a plane! Despite it being a Sunday, the roads were extremely busy due to the Chinese Qingming festival. It was today! During this time Chinese families visit the tombs of their ancestors to clean the gravesites and make offerings. We noticed large groups of families at gravesites and pagodas. The traffic jams meant we had to make a couple of detours. We passed through many poorer village areas on our way and observed lots of rubbish in piles along the roadside. Despite this, the outlook is very positive for Cambodia with many infrastructure improvements and buildings going up everywhere. Our guide, Borey said that there are now many more wealthy Cambodians than in the past and the standard of living is improving for all. We had a couple of stops on the way to Siem Reap. One was at the home of a family who make silver decorations. We saw the children learning how to do this craft and a woman who was working on large pieces that were to go on a pagoda. Another stop was at a food market where we could purchase cooked tarantulas as well as crickets and other insects. Children held live tarantulas and invited us to hold them for a photo. Most of us declined the offer. When we were only about 40 minutes from Siem Reap, we stopped for a late lunch at a beautiful restaurant. We ate under a gorgeous wooden pergola area, surrounded by colourful plants and water features. We arrived at our hotel in Siem Reap, The Tara Angkor. Another lovely hotel. Borey explained that in Siem Reap, buildings can be not taller than 70 metres high due to the nearby Angkor Wat Temple height. At our new hotel we met our new guide, On. He was easy to understand and went through a few details re the excursions that we can do over the next few days. He offered to take us on a tour into the city tonight and we decided to do this tour along with 12 others from the group. We are so glad we did as it gave us such a wonderful look at the Cambodian people of Siem Reap and their lifestyle. Our first stop was a local night food market. Here we saw many families out for the evening, sitting on picnic rugs and enjoying the wonderful array of food being cooked. There were many, many different places to obtain food and On, purchased some things for us to try. We able to watch things being cooked etc. We were the only “westerners” in this area and were a bit of a novelty. We continued our Tuk-tuk tour to a part of the city where we came to a beautifully lit public square. Here there were many locals and families enjoying, dancing, music and fitness activities, free. It has such a lovely atmosphere, and everyone looked happy. We continued our tour arriving at another market area and a street called Pub Street. There were hundreds of eateries and some more upmarket shops selling all sorts of things. The area was busy but also more organised, clean, tidy etc. You felt very safe there. We were taken to an eatery called “Speak Easy” and enjoyed free beer and soft drinks. We could have as much as we wanted. We ordered some nibbles to share for dinner as we weren’t that hungry. We did a little shopping after, before returning to our hotel on our Tuk-tuk. We all agreed that even the traffic is less chaotic here and it is very easy to get around. The city looked so beautiful at night with all the beautiful lighting installations.